WASHINGTON, Sept 7 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - As Congress continues to debate the fate of the proposed cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security, U.S. President George W. Bush called Saturday for the department to be granted unprecedented powers and resources to combat threats to the United States.

"Our homeland is vulnerable to attack, and we must do everything in our power to protect it," Bush said in his weekly radio address, just ahead of the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the U.S.

"America needs a single department of government dedicated to the task of protecting our people. Right now, responsibilities for homeland security are scattered across dozens of departments in Washington.

"By ending duplication and overlap, we will spend less on overhead and more on protecting America," Bush said. "And we must give the Department of Homeland Security every tool it needs to succeed.

Bush also said the department should be more flexible than most bureaucracies, and able to quickly respond to changing circumstances.

"The Department of Homeland Security must be able to move people and resources quickly, without being forced to comply with a thick book of bureaucratic rules," he said.

Bush complained that legislation pending in the Senate to create the department requires unnecessary extra steps and "time we simply do not have" as it omits "transfer authority" for the eventual Secretary of Homeland Security.

"Under the Senate bill, the Secretary would have to ask the President to submit a supplemental budget request to Congress, and then wait for Congress to act every time new terrorist threats presented a need for additional funding," he said.

"I will not accept a homeland security bill that ties the hands of this administration or future administrations in defending our nation against terrorist attacks."

The call by Bush comes following an earlier assertion that more authority is needed to manage the estimated 170,000 workers in the proposed cabinet-level Homeland Department, urging the Senate to pass a measure consolidating numerous national security-related government agencies currently spread out over numerous departments under one roof, reports CNN.

The Republican-led House of Representatives passed the White House version of the bill in July, but the Democratic-run Senate opposes Bush's insistence on allowing top officials more power over personnel issues. Bush has threatened to veto any bill that does not grant the White House that authority, reports the cable news network.

Saying the enhanced powers would undercut protections for federal employees and weaken the civil service system, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, criticized the plan, commenting that federal workers need protection: "There's going to be congressional oversight, and I think at the end of the day, the civil rights of workers are going to be protected, instead of stripping away those under the guise of management flexibility."

But both the House and Senate find common ground on other issues. Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) said Tuesday the Senate is "near-unified" on the bulk of the bill, and "only a big pessimist would see the difficulty in the opportunity this department would create to secure our people and our homeland."

For his part, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge voiced confidence the White House and Senate Democrats would settle their differences.

"I think we will get it done before they recess for the November elections," Ridge said on NBC's "Today" program.