The nation\u2019s ports and border crossings remain vulnerable to a nuclear 9\/11 despite a $4 billion investment since 2005 by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on a number of programs aimed at preventing nuclear smuggling around the world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Senators similarly admonished DHS in a recent Senate hearing for failing to uphold its end of the bargain with the American people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u201cTerrorists have made clear their desire to secure a nuclear weapon,\u201d Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins said at the Sept. 15 hearing. \u201cGiven this stark reality, we must ask: what has the department done to defend against nuclear terrorism on American soil? The answer, unfortunately, is not enough\u2026 not nearly enough.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), responsible for the domestic aspect of DHS\u2019s nuclear terror deterrence, received approximately half of the $4 billion investment, which it spent deploying over 1,400 radiation monitors at the nation\u2019s seaports and border crossings in conjunction with U.S. Customs and Border Protection.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
But these radiation monitors have a serious flaw: they can only detect radiation from lightly shielded radiation sources.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The only problem is that spending billions more to fix this “flaw” won’t help, unless you happen to have invested your nest egg in detection equipment.\u00a0 The article continues,<\/p>\n
The GAO report uncovered a bureaucratic nightmare involving DNDO and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which resulted in the failure to properly develop and deploy detection equipment that could detect radiation from heavily shielded sources.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
DNDO began working shortly after its founding in April 2005 on what it called the Cargo Advanced Automated Radiography System (CAARS) and the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal (ASP) \u0336 intended to automatically detect radiation from heavily shielded sources in a user-friendly fashion in order to screen cargo containers in the nation\u2019s ports and border crossings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In the first place, radiation detection equipment doesn’t come in just two flavors; “good for heavily shielded sources” and “not good for heavily shielded sources.”\u00a0 There are a great number of different types, all with their own strengths and weaknesses in terms of sensitivity, energy resolution, etc.\u00a0 In the second place, it doesn’t matter what kind\u00a0are installed at the ports, because terrorists will simply bypass them.\u00a0 The whole port security paradigm is based on the premise that our opponents, in spite of their ability to acquire SNM in the first place, will be bone stupid.\u00a0 They won’t, and there are much more effective ways to spend all the money we are throwing down this particular rathole.<\/p>\n
The article goes on to cite Cato Institute<\/a> budget analyst Tad DeHaven<\/a>, who plays a familiar broken record to demagogue the sheep:<\/p>\n
They are not subject to market forces and other controls, so they can screw up federal money,\u201d DeHaven said. \u201cThere are not going to be any angry shareholders, and in most cases you are not going to lose your job, so the incentives for the federal government to efficiently and effectively procure goods \u2026 are poor.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
One wonders if he reallly gets paid to churn out such hackneyed stuff.\u00a0 Tell me, Tad, do you actually know anything about the people who work for DNDO?\u00a0 Did it ever occur to you that many of them might be ex-military, that they might be highly motivated and dedicated to their country’s welfare, and that\u00a0it’s not out of the question that they\u00a0care a great deal about working to “efficiently and effectively procure goods”?\u00a0 You might actually try meeting and talking to some of them.\u00a0 They work just down the street from you.\u00a0 Did it ever occur to you that the problem might not be their lack of patriotism and dedication, but the fact that they’ve been given an impossible task?\u00a0 And BTW, no, I don’t work for DNDO or DHS.<\/p>\n
The article concludes in a somewhat more sober vein,<\/p>\n
Heritage Foundation homeland security analyst Jena Baker-McNeill instead blames Congress for setting what she sees as an unrealistic goal of inspecting every container that passes through the nation\u2019s ports and border crossings. Congress imposed the goal for political reasons without considering its practical implications, she said. Baker-McNeill believes more emphasis should have been placed on increased intelligence aimed at intercepting nuclear smugglers abroad due to the volume of cargo that enters the country and limited resources.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It seems to me Ms. Baker-McNeill might be on to something.\u00a0 If we’re going to spend money to defeat nuclear terrorism, I suspect it will be much better spent on finding ways to keep terrorists from getting their hands on SNM in the first place.\u00a0 Once they do, we can install the most efficient radiation detectors with the most clever software ever devised at all our ports, and it won’t deter them in the slightest.\u00a0 We will only have bought ourselves a dangerous sense of false security.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/ASP.jpg\" "\\"ASP\\"")
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