PORT ELIZABETH (USA), June 24: Warning the Congress against delay “in a time of war”, US President George W. Bush on Monday called on lawmakers to do their jobs and send him a defence bill as soon as possible.

“I expect the United States Congress to get the defense bill to my desk quickly,” he said during a visit to the largest marine terminal on the East Coast. “They don’t need to delay the defense bill in a time of war, they need to deliberate like they’re supposed to, and get it to my desk.”

The Republican president rejected criticism from Democrats that his spending request for the Pentagon was too big.

“The enemy would have loved to have seen a scrawny little budget up there,” Bush said. “They’d have said, ‘Well, we were right, they’re going to quit.’ We’re not quitting.”

The president has raised the prospect of a veto if Congress did not follow through on his request for $379 billion in fiscal 2003 for the defense budget, a $48 billion increase and the largest since President Ronald Reagan was in the White House.

Bush paid tribute to Port Authority personnel for their response to the Sept. 11 attacks, drawing tears from several widows, whose husbands were among the 75 lost after hijacked planes leveled the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York.

“They’re nothing but a bunch of cold-blooded killers,” he said. “And I want you to know, no matter how long it takes, we’re going to hunt their killers down, one by one, and bring them to justice.”

Using the word “freedom” almost a dozen times in his 22-minute speech, Bush pushed for congressional approval of his proposed Department of Homeland Security that would reorganize more than 100 agencies under a single umbrella.

TURF BATTLES: “This new war of the 21st century requires a 100 percent effort to protect the homeland,” Bush said.