Protecting the nation

Friday, Sept. 5, 2008 | 2:08 a.m.

A cornerstone of the Homeland Security Department’s strategy to protect the United States from a terrorist attack involving radioactive material was to use sophisticated detection devices known as advanced spectroscopic portal monitors at domestic seaports, airports and border crossings. It makes perfect sense to check every car, truck, ship and airplane that enters this country on the chance it may be transporting homemade bombs or the ingredients necessary to build and detonate nuclear devices.

But the department’s $1.2 billion plan to implement this counterterrorism initiative, announced in 2006 with much fanfare, was put on hold after congressional auditors found that the agency’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office had provided Congress with misleading information about the cost and effectiveness of the machines. The episode has proved to be an embarrassment for the Bush administration, which claims to be doing all it can to fend off potential terrorist attacks.

The latest chapter in this saga was reported Thursday by The Washington Post, which obtained another unflattering audit from the Government Accountability Office related to the radioactive detection program. The audit, which was prepared for Congress but has not been officially released, disclosed that the detection office has come up with a scaled-down plan to use the monitoring equipment on certain cargo containers. But the Post quoted the audit as stating that the detection office still is not sure what advanced method it will use to screen other cargo transported by rail and privately owned vehicles or through airports and seaports.

So it is back to the drawing board to deal with a security issue that should have been resolved by now. Until then, the government will continue to use less expensive but also less reliable monitoring equipment that often cannot distinguish weapons-grade radioactive material from other radioactive sources.

The seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is next week. Seven years should have been time enough to deploy a monitoring system capable of identifying weapons-grade material.