Washington ? As the government this month begins to turn the new Department of Homeland Security into reality, cobbling together 22 different agencies in an effort to prevent the next terrorist attack, one gaping hole remains, according to critics inside and outside the government.

None of the merging bureaucracies, or the CIA or FBI, owns computer systems that can speak to each other, and there is no mandate, or funding, in the nearly 500-page homeland security law to change that.

What that means, critics say, is that promises in Washington that the new super agency will be able to “connect the dots” when it comes to terrorism won’t have a prayer of being fulfilled unless Congress or the Bush administration quickly adopts a plan to integrate the war on terror’s most important weapon: information.

The administration says it is moving in the right direction and beginning to find ways for the computer systems to communicate, although senior officials acknowledge the task is enormous. Their effort to win specific funding from Congress to better coordinate the computers came up short, though $140 million was approved to help pay for the agency’s early transition period.

Despite the optimism of some officials, others say the effort is so crucial and daunting that it could be compared to the race for the atomic bomb. According to Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the nation needs a new Manhattan Project for merging information technology.

The Homeland Security Department must bring together an array of agencies engaged in diverse activities with dramatically differing — sometimes competing — cultures.

The departments being merged range from the seafaring rescue crews working for the U.S. Coast Guard to parts of the Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

Durbin and others believe turf wars will never be resolved so long as government officials maintain the ability to hold on to their own data.

“Each of these agencies is inclined to protect its own marbles and not let anyone else touch them,” the senator said. “It’s about protecting their turf and their jobs. That runs 180 degrees counter to what this nation needs at this moment.”

So far, Bush administration officials have identified about 30 information systems that need to be merged just in the first wave. These systems, according to one senior official who spoke on condition of anonymity, hold just the basics. Scores more will need to follow.

The types of separate data involved seem staggering.

One example: When a ship travels into the Great Lakes from the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Customs Service, the Coast Guard, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Department of Agriculture can all be involved in scrutinizing the vessel, and all separately catalog their data.

One agency must determine if the ship is carrying contraband. Another is involved in the regulation of tariffs and fees. One checks the immigration status of crew and passengers, another concerns itself with health and safety standards.

Unless those systems — and others containing information on potential terrorist threats or operatives — talk to each other, crucial clues about the people and cargo aboard the vessel could go unrecognized.

Although they are not included in the homeland security merger, the CIA and FBI must also be brought into the information loop, experts say, because those agencies are supposed to work closely with the new department.

Once that happens, special procedures will need to be created to keep unauthorized users from gaining access.