Washington ? Gaining fresh pledges of support, President Bush on Tuesday sent to Congress his detailed proposal for creation of a new Homeland Security Department a 35-page bill that outlines the biggest government reshuffling since 1947.

At a ceremony just off the House floor, White House homeland security chief Tom Ridge handed Republican and Democratic leaders copies of the slim legislation as the Bush administration pressed for passage by fall, perhaps as early as Sept. 11.

Bush said the new agency would form an “organizational foundation for America’s triumph in a long and difficult struggle” with what he called the permanent condition of terrorist threats against America. Bush said it was comparable to President Truman’s consolidation of the military into a single Defense Department to fight the Cold War against the Soviet Union.

“Today, our nation must once again reorganize our government to protect against an often-invisible enemy, an enemy that hides in the shadows and an enemy that can strike with many different types of weapons,” Bush said.

Lawmakers renewed their promises of support and quick action on a bill that would transfer about 100 federal entities into a single Cabinet agency with an annual budget of more than $37 billion and about 170,000 employees.

The White House usually provides Congress with broad concepts rather than detailed legislative language for measures the president wants. This bill was immediately referred to nine House committees and one in the Senate; Ridge is to testify about the plan before House and Senate committees on Thursday.

Given the complexity of the task, several lawmakers said a more realistic date for passage may be by the time Congress adjourns in October.

“We’re not going to put haste in the way of doing it right,” said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

Members of the House-Senate intelligence panel investigating what went wrong before last year’s terrorist attacks suggested reorganization should wait until a better picture emerges about intelligence failures.

“I do believe we will not be far enough along to provide the advice we’d like to provide,” said Rep. Doug Bereuter, R-Neb.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., also sounded a cautionary note, saying that safeguarding Americans from terrorism on U.S. soil would take more than shuffling agencies and creating a new federal nameplate.

Many Democrats say the administration must follow up with additional money and resources.

“This provides us the tool to get the job done. It doesn’t do the job,” Daschle said.

Although there appears to be no stopping the bill, there remain a host of questions about how the new agency would function.

Leading the list is the president’s decision to keep the CIA, FBI and other intelligence agencies out of the Homeland Security Department, which would still be responsible for analyzing intelligence data.