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Border Radiation Detectors Not Ready

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By ROBERT O'HARROW JR., The Washington Post

Published: November 20, 2007

WASHINGTON - A $1.2 billion plan by the Department of Homeland Security to buy a new kind of radiation-detection machine for the nation's borders has been put on hold again, a blow to one of the Bush administration's top security goals.

At the same time, federal authorities are investigating whether Homeland Security officials urged an analyst to destroy information about the performance of the machines during testing, according to interviews and a document.

For more than a year, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and others have told Congress the costly next-generation machines would sharply improve the screening of trucks, cars and cargo containers for radiological material. In announcing contracts in July 2006 to buy as many as 1,400 of the devices, Chertoff said they were ready to be deployed in the field for research.

But in the face of questions by government auditors, Congress and border officials about the machines' performance, Chertoff has decided they don't operate well enough and need more work. It could be another year before they are ready, officials said.

The turnabout is among a series of episodes that have raised questions about the management of the department's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office and its efforts to deploy the promising but highly complex and largely untried machines.

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