RGONNE, Ill., July 22 President Bush came today to a national laboratory that is a direct descendant of the one where scientists pioneered the work that led to the development of the atomic bomb. There he declared that new technologies to detect anthrax, sniff biological attacks in buildings and help contain panic after an attack would help win "the defining conflict of the 21st century."

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Mr. Bush is the first president ever to visit the the laboratory, Argonne National, created here on the outskirts of Chicago four years after Enrico Fermi's experiment at the University of Chicago produced the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.

Now the laboratory's mission is being redefined by the Bush administration to focus much of its work on counterterrorism, and the White House used the visit here today to press Congress to finish the creation of a new Department of Homeland Security by Sept. 11.

Under Mr. Bush's plan, most operations of the national laboratories, which are now under the Department of Energy, would move to the new department, along with agencies that guard the borders, keep track of immigrants and respond to national emergencies.

"We're depending on you to develop the tools we need to lift the dark threat of terrorism for our nation," Mr. Bush told several hundred employees of the Argonne laboratory in a blazingly hot courtyard. "I'm here to look in the eyes of those who possess the genius and the creativity of the American people."

It was Mr. Bush's second trip in four days to rally the effort against terrorism. On Friday, he visited Fort Drum, N.Y., home of the Army's 10th Mountain Division, which helped rout the Taliban from power in Afghanistan and then cleared caves thought to be Al Qaeda hideouts.

But today's trip had a more specific purpose: Mr. Bush was trying to stop influential committees in Congress from picking apart his plan to consolidate government agencies in the new department.

Mr. Bush vigorously defended his proposal to give the secretary of homeland security broad powers to redirect millions of dollars to projects without Congressional approval, something the executive branch does not usually enjoy.

"We need the freedom to manage," Mr. Bush said. The Coast Guard must be part of the new department, he said, despite some movement in Congress to keep it in the Department of Transportation.

Mr. Bush took a brief tour of the laboratory to view technologies developed here and at sister laboratories, including Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. It turned into something of a science fair for counterterrorism inventions, with Mr. Bush moving from exhibit to exhibit.

After the tour, Spencer Abraham, the secretary of energy, who oversees the laboratories, said, "I feel a little bit like Q in the old James Bond movies." He was referring to the fusty scientist who outfitted Bond for his missions.

But if Q's inventions were designed to get British agents out of lethal situations, Argonne's are intended to save cities.

One creates a computer model of what would happen to traffic, important buildings, the electric grid and natural gas pipelines if terrorists struck. Mr. Bush saw a simulation of an attack in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that would strike facilities and highways he knows from his days as governor of Texas.

The NEST teams from the Department of Energy, which detect and dismantle nuclear weapons, showed him their detection equipment. Scientists from Los Alamos showed off their system to track the identity and origin of a biological agent like anthrax.

The Argonne lab here has designed portable sensors that can detect a biological attack at outdoor events and the prototype of a system to warn of a chemical or biological attack in offices or subways. Argonne has also developed and licensed production of a foam to neutralize some biological and chemical agents.