The Project BioShield Act, which authorizes spending $5.6 billion over 10 years for vaccine-related programs, was signed in a White House ceremony just hours before senior White House staff members were to receive a briefing on findings and recommendations from the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Those attacks revealed the depth of our enemies' determination, but not the extent of their ambitions, Bush said. "We know that the terrorists seek an even deadlier technology. And if they acquire chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, we have no doubt they will use them.

It (the act) sends a message about our direction in the war on terror, Bush said. We refuse to remain idle while modern technology might be turned against us.

The terror attacks of Sept. 11, using hijacked airliners, killed nearly 3,000 people. Training materials of the al-Qaida terrorist group found in Afghanistan later indicated the group, which has admitted to carrying out the Sept. 11 attacks, was interested in chemical and biological agents for use in attacks.

A Japanese extremist group, in an unconnected terrorist attack on a subway train in Tokyo, killed 12 people and injured 6,000 others with the release of the poison gas sarin.

Under Project BioShield, the government will buy and stockpile vaccines and drugs to fight anthrax, smallpox and other potential agents of bioterror as well as develop newer antidotes. New vaccines and drugs could, under certain guidelines, be distributed to the public in an emergency, even if they had not received final approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

The purchase of 75 million doses of an improved anthrax vaccine for the Strategic National Stockpile was already in the works, Bush said.

Meanwhile, senior White House staff - including national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Chief of Staff Andrew Card and Counsel Alberto Gonzales - were receiving a special briefing Wednesday on the 2001 attacks from co-chairmen of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, popularly known as the 9/11 Commission, created by Congress and signed into being by Bush in 2002.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, a Republican; and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind.; would summarize conclusions of the commission's report and its recommendations to prevent a repeat of the United States' worst-ever incident of terrorism. White House staff members would report the information to Bush, who would formally be presented with the findings by the panel's co-chairmen Thursday.

I look forward to receiving the report, Bush said. Every American can be certain that their government will continue doing everything in our power to prevent a terrorist attack. And if the terrorists do strike, we'll be better prepared to defend our people because of the good law I signed today.

The committee report was under wraps Wednesday, but leaks to the media have indicated it will fault lack of intelligence and/or intelligence coordination as a contributing factor. The panel was expected to recommend Bush create a Cabinet-level post to oversee the intelligence-gathering activities of the many government agencies conducting such activities.

Neither the Bush administration nor the Clinton administration, neither of which apparently realized the threat of a terrorist strike on the homeland, is expected to be blamed for the attacks, which sparked the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Bush administration said it has focused on counter-terror since Sept. 11 with the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, the USA Patriot Act and a reorientation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, among other measures.

Bush has remained non-committal on the intelligence czar idea, saying he was mulling it over.

McClellan said the president, however, is open to new ideas that would build upon efforts to protect against future attacks.

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