HOUSE PANEL ASKS IF AGENCIES CAN FIND NUCLEAR NEEDLE IN CARGO HAYSTACK

HOUSE PANEL ASKS IF AGENCIES CAN FIND NUCLEAR NEEDLE IN CARGO HAYSTACK    Members of the House Committee on Government Reform’s Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations heard public testimony at a “homeland security hearing” Monday on the issue of “finding the nuclear needle in the cargo container haystack.”
   Rep. Christopher Shays, chairman of the subcommittee, grilled government witnesses as to the feasibility of detecting a nuclear bomb brought into a U.S. port in a container.
   “Be brutally honest, we need to know what terrorists know,” Shays said. “At a previous hearing, we learned that enough fissile material to construct a nuclear device could just as easily slip by even the most sophisticated screening because weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriches uranium do not emit that much active radiation.”
   Shays referred to “the tension between tighter security and robust commerce” and the need “to strike a balance that will result in safer and more productive ports.”
   Members of the subcommittee received little comfort from JayEtta Z. Hecker, director of the physical infrastructure team, General Accounting Office; Rear Adm. Larry Hereth, director, port security, U.S. Coast Guard; Jayson Ahern, assistant commissioner, Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs Service; and Rear Adm. Richard Bennis, associate undersecretary for maritime and land security, Transportation Security Administration.
   “We are in a situation of vast vulnerability,” Hecker said. “The risk is real,” despite “new efforts to address the entire supply chain” in ports at home and abroad.
   Hereth said if new funding permitted, the Coast Guard could increase its “in-transit security searches,” which the subcommittee appeared to favor. Such searches would be conducted on most incoming vessels 200 miles from a port of entry.
   Hecker said the GAO would release on Tuesday a report prepared for the U.S. Senate on the Coast Guard’s “balancing act” between its regular maritime duties and its security inspections. The report, she said, calls for “better reporting” by the Coast Guard on its operations.
   Customs’ Ahern noted that 65 to 70 percent of all incoming cargo originated at the 20 megaports outside of the United States that are, or targeted to be part of Customs’ Container Security Initiative.
   Bennis said, “We must secure the supply chain, not impede it,” adding, “there are many materials lawfully imported into the U.S. which can be diverted to terrorist needs.”
   Shays said his prime fear was that, “instead of attacking us with missiles, an enemy would position containers with bombs in various American cities to be in a position to blackmail the president by saying ‘do this, or you lose Cincinnati.’ Can you tell me if the government today has the means to detect a nuclear bomb in a container with any degree of certainty?” he asked Hecker, Hereth, Ahern, and Bennis.
   All four answered “no.'