Radiation Detectors for Border Are Delayed Again

Source: Washington Post, Page One

By Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 20, 2007; Page A01

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 that 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. He recently called their acquisition a "vital priority." But in the face of growing questions by government auditors, Congress and border officials about the machines' performance, Chertoff has decided that 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....

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/19/AR2007111901743.html?hpid=sec-business

to cancel the 2008 elections we can blame the Dems for delaying the detectors.