Tom Ridge (Doug Mills / A.P.)

WASHINGTON -- In a windowless space 10 paces from the Oval Office, Tom Ridge reported for duty Monday at the new Office of Homeland Security. His assignment: figure out where America is vulnerable to terrorist attack and try to ensure it doesn't happen again.

"The task before us is difficult, but not impossible," said Ridge, who resigned as Pennsylvania governor just three days earlier to accept the daunting challenge laid out by President Bush.

In an executive order, the president instructed Ridge to bring all federal, state and local agencies together in drawing up a plan "to detect, prepare for, prevent, protect against, respond to and recover from terrorist attacks within the United States."

It was a mouthful that Ridge stumbled over as he restated his mission to an audience of family members and government VIPs in the East Room. He also said his job will be to find the gaps in America's law enforcement and intelligence operations, and close them.

His portfolio bulged with weighty mandates:

Set priorities for spying overseas and make sure intelligence agencies have all the money and technology they need.

Develop a system for detecting any release of biological and chemical agents, and for containing their spread.

Review hospital capacity and supplies of vaccines and pharmaceuticals.

Fortify security for power plants, phone systems, railways, highways, shipping ports, and food and water supplies.

Ridge will be working with bureaucracies that have a tradition of turf battles over money and jurisdiction, a potential obstacle that he acknowledged with a plea for cooperation.

"The only turf we should be worried about protecting is the turf we stand on," he said.

Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Ridge will need new legislation to carry out his job successfully. Congress wants to "give him the tools," Shelby said on CNN's "Larry King Live."

The six-year governor and former six-term congressman began work on the second day of U.S. military strikes in Afghanistan. That operation will likely spark terrorist reprisals, according to intelligence community warnings.

As if to underscore that threat, Vice President Dick Cheney remained at a secret location and left Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to administer Ridge's oath.

Ridge, 56, a bulky Army vet decorated for his bravery in Vietnam, bent to kiss his daughter Lesley, 15. "I love you," he whispered.

Within the hour, bidding began for the money newly under Ridge's control, including $25 million from an emergency fund Congress created last month. The International Association of Fire Fighters distributed a press release complaining that too many counterterrorism dollars are steered to the military, think tanks and universities, rather than fire fighters "who are the first responders" to terrorist attacks.

How much money Ridge has to work with remained unclear. Bush's order only directed Ridge to instruct federal budget officers on what funds are necessary.

Even before he was sworn, Ridge sat in on the morning FBI briefing that has been on Bush's daily schedule ever since the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and New York's twin towers. Ridge, who befriended Bush after volunteering for his father's 1988 campaign, will also have carte blanche to see the president without first clearing a request through White House chief of staff Andrew Card.

Ridge will not have an automatic seat in the president's daily intelligence and National Security Council briefings, but will be invited in on an "as required" basis, said press secretary Ari Fleischer.

Ridge will set the agenda for a new Homeland Security Council a domestic version of the National Security Council that includes the secretaries of Treasury, Defense, Transportation, and Health and Human Services; and the directors of the CIA, FBI and Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Aides to deputy White House chief of staff Josh Bolten had to double up in an office next door to make room for Ridge on the interior West Wing corridor that connects the Oval Office to Card's corner suite.

A freshly designed seal with a fierce-looking American eagle perched atop a red banner was put up outside Ridge's quarters and the cabinets inside were hastily stained a stately dark brown.

Likening his mission to construction of the transcontinental railroad and putting a man on the moon, Ridge said it will take patience. He quoted the Army Corps of Engineers motto: "The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer."