Radiation Detector Program Delayed-DHS May Have Misled Congress, GAO Audit Finds

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19/AR2007071902615.html?nav=rss_politics

Radiation Detector Program Delayed
DHS May Have Misled Congress, GAO Audit Finds

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

A $1.2 billion program to deploy new radiation monitors to screen trucks, cars and cargo containers for signs of nuclear devices has been delayed by questions over whether Department of Homeland Security officials misled Congress about the effectiveness of the detectors.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced the contracts for monitors with cutting-edge technology a year ago. He said they would improve radiation scans at borders and ports, while sharply reducing the number of false alarms. Congress had allowed the five-year project to move ahead after Homeland Security assured appropriators that the $377,000 machines would detect highly enriched uranium 95 percent of the time.

"What this next generation of detection equipment is going to let us do is make those determinations much more precisely, much more easily and much more quickly," Chertoff said.

But the department's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office did not know whether the detectors would work effectively, according to documents and interviews.

Auditors from the Government Accountability Office later found that the detection rates of machines tested by the department were as low as 17 percent and no higher than about 50 percent. The auditors said the department's optimistic report to Congress on the cost and benefits of the machines was based on assumptions instead of facts -- a finding that prompted lawmakers to put the project on hold last year.

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[habitual]

1. i guess someone should look at who the contracts were

given to. It sounds like a giveaway to me!