By Dana Milbank

Bush administration officials said October 1 there will likely be more terrorist strikes in the United States, possibly including chemical and biological warfare, and they urged Congress to expand police powers by October 5 to counter the threat.

Despite their warnings about further attacks, top administration officials said President Bush wants to reopen Reagan National Airport and expressed confidence that new security measures would allow the reopening.

As the administration cautioned that collaborators in the Sept. 11 attacks probably were still at large, lawmakers said they had resolved most of the civil liberty objections to anti-terrorism legislation.

Under a possible compromise, the government would be able to hold certain foreigners without charges for a week rather than the indefinite detention the administration sought.

Although differences narrowed over domestic anti-terrorism measures, the administration quickly rebuffed a negotiation bid from the ruling Taliban militia in Afghanistan, which said it was sheltering the man accused of masterminding the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Osama bin Laden.

Dropping claims that the regime could not locate bin Laden, the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, said bin Laden was in Afghanistan and "under our control" but "in a place which cannot be located by anyone" except top Taliban officials. Zaeef also suggested that the Taliban still might consider turning over bin Laden if the United States presented firm evidence of his guilt.

"We are thinking of negotiation," he said.

Administration officials said the Taliban had no credibility. "It was just a few days ago that they said they didn't know where he was, so I have no reason to believe anything a Taliban representative would say," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Another top administration official, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., condemned the Taliban, who, he said, had "duped and used" the Afghan people. "We'd like to see a more stable government."

A White House spokesman last night declined to confirm news reports that Bush has approved increasing aid to foes of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Bush flew to the White House early yesterday afternoon after spending the weekend at Camp David. Though he did not speak publicly yesterday, his advisers, making the rounds of the five Sunday news shows, used the platform to deliver Bush's messages -- among them endorsements from Rumsfeld and Card for the reopening of National Airport with enhanced security.

"I'm confident that we can address the challenge and that Ronald Reagan Airport will be open. The question is how quickly and under what circumstances," Card said on "Fox News Sunday."

Two task forces studying aviation security are due to report October 1 to Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta.

Among their recommendations, according to industry officials, are that the new federal agency on aviation security that Bush announced Thursday be housed at the Transportation Department, and that the administration have flexibility to decide whether airport baggage screeners should be federal workers or contract employees.

New York officials yesterday lowered the number of missing people by more than 400 because of double-counting of foreigners, leaving 5,756 listed as dead or missing. But Bush's aides repeated earlier warnings that Americans should expect more terrorist attacks.

Speaking on CBS's "Face the Nation," Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said there is a "likelihood of additional terrorist activity."

"We think that there is a very serious threat of additional problems now," Ashcroft said. "And, frankly, as the United States responds, that threat may escalate."

Expanding on that warning, Ashcroft said on CNN's "Late Edition" that "there are all kinds of threats," including explosives.

"I think there is a clear, present danger to Americans, not one that should keep us from living our lives, but one that should make us alert. . . . It's very unlikely that all of those associated with the attacks of Sept. 11 are now detained or have been detected."

Card raised the specter of biological or chemical terrorism. "I'm not trying to be an alarmist, but we know that these terrorist organizations, like al Qaeda, run by Osama bin Laden and others, have probably found the means to use biological or chemical warfare, and that is very, very bad for the world," he said.

Card promised that the administration would increase inventories of key vaccines and medicines. Asked whether he agreed with an assertion by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) on Saturday that the United States could use nuclear weapons to respond to a biological or chemical attack, Card said, "We're going to do everything we can to defend the United States."

Rumsfeld, asserting the "probability" that terrorists eventually would be equipped with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by nations sponsoring terrorism, said he would make "some adjustments" in the military's command structure to make room for domestic defense.

The defense secretary spoke of a campaign that would target bin Laden's al Qaeda network in 50 or 60 countries until it is "liquidated." Describing the aims of the administration's war on terrorism, he added: "We ultimately, over time, will be able to track down and make life so difficult, so uncomfortable, that people won't want to be in that business."

The American military campaign against bin Laden and his followers appeared to suffer a setback when the Saudi Arabian defense minister, Prince Sultan, told an Arabic newspaper that no troops could use his country's bases for military strikes on Arabs and Muslims.

"We will not accept in our country even a single soldier who will attack Muslims or Arabs," Sultan said in an interview published yesterday in the government-controlled Okaz newspaper.

The prince, however, did not explicitly rule out American use of a state-of-the-art command center southeast of Riyadh for directing military action in the region. The Pentagon has intended to coordinate much of its upcoming operations from the U.S.-built center.

When asked on ABC's "This Week" about the defense minister's remarks, Saudi Ambassador to Washington Prince Bandar bin Sultan said: "Our discussion with our American friends is steady, and it is in total agreement between us and them. . . . We have not been asked for the using of the bases in Saudi Arabia."

Lawmakers, meanwhile, indicated there would be rapid action on the anti-terrorism legislation, perhaps by the Oct. 5 target the administration has set.

There is wide agreement on various new provisions, including allowing investigators to see what Internet sites a suspect visited and to wiretap multiple telephones used by a suspect without obtaining a separate warrant for each phone. There will also likely be tougher penalties without statutes of limitations for terrorist offenses.

The largest remaining issue is whether foreigners who have violated immigration laws can be detained indefinitely. Senate Judiciary Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) told NBC, "We should have something in effect, like a speedy trial kind of provision, that required them to be held only a certain amount of time and then released and-or the deportation matter taken care of." Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said,

"They're negotiating over seven days." The politicians also suggested that Congress might go beyond the airport security measures Bush has proposed, embracing a federal takeover of airport security.

But Ashcroft continued to argue for the power to detain suspects as long as immigration charges against them were being adjudicated.

"I don't want to be releasing suspected terrorists onto the streets of the United States of America who are being adjudicated as violators of the immigration laws already," he said.

More than 500 people have been arrested or detained, many of them on immigration violations.

Washington Post October 1, 2001; Page A01