US: The United States Senate has approved the biggest reorganisation of the US government in half a century, voting 90-9 last night to create a massive new Department of Homeland Security.
Not since 1945, when President Harry Truman announced the merger of the war and navy departments into the defence department, has a US administration attempted such a radical bureaucratic shake-up.
The new department, designed primarily to improve intelligence and emergency response coordination in the wake of the September 11th attacks, will absorb 22 agencies and 170,000 employees.
Its divisions will include immigration and naturalisation, customs, secret service, coast guard, border patrol, national communications, emergency management and transportation security - but not the CIA or FBI.
The Senate vote came after months of bitter partisan wrangling and is a personal victory for President George Bush, who made it his major legislative goal after the attacks on the US.
The House had already passed the Homeland Security Bill, which angered Democrats because it severely restricts civil service freedoms, and it will now be sent to the President for signing.
Responding from Prague, where he is attending the NATO summit, Mr Bush congratulated the Senate for a "landmark" decision that would "better protect America".
A rearguard action against the measure was led by Democratic Senator Robert Byrd who, in a fiery, speech referred to the 484-page bill as a "monstrosity".
"Osama bin Laden is still alive and plotting more attacks while we play bureaucratic shuffle-board," Mr Byrd told the Senate.
Democrats failed to get the removal of last-minute provisions inserted by Republicans giving new liability protections to drug companies that make vaccine.
Plans are being made to give smallpox injections to large sections of the population.
In the end Mr Byrd was one of only eight democrats who voted against the measure.
US officials conceded that it will take years to organise the new department, expected to be led by Mr Tom Ridge, the White House domestic security adviser.
Comptroller General David Walker said:"It's going to take years in order to get this department fully integrated. You're talking about bringing together 22 different entities, each with a longstanding tradition and its own culture."
Some officials said that the department, whose doors will open at a transitional sitre in Washington next spring, could one day rival the FBI in domestic intelligence gathering.