High-tech sniffers to stop 'dirty' bombs

"We anticipate mobile detection systems and fixed systems ... that enable us to achieve randomness and screening around the country, in transit zones, aircraft in flight, and container ships," says Vayle Oxford, acting director of the new DHS Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO).

He envisions detectors that would screen "target areas" like high-risk cities, and some that could alert security forces to investigate. In sum, it's a new concept that will need huge databases to collect and collate data from what could become thousands of WMD sensors on bridges and buildings.

"What we're trying to do with global architecture is to knit this together," Dr. Oxford says. DNDO received $318 million in fiscal year 2006 funding - about $90 million more than President Bush requested from Congress.

Today only a few truly advanced detection systems are actually deployed, including one at MassPort in Boston and another at a border crossing with Mexico near San Diego, Dr. Tannenbaum says.

By 2007, DHS expects to decide on the best technology to put into 2,500 advanced detectors to be rolled out nationwide.

One possible technology, from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is RadNet, a kind of global positioning system married to a radiation detector packed into a cellphone. The idea is that this "cellphone sniffer" could be carried by police officers on their daily routes - all the while detecting radiation and transmitting coordinates to a computer that maps hot zones for investigation.

Another contender: Princeton University's Miniature Integrated Detection System (MINDS), which can distinguish between types of radiation using sophisticated software.

So far, MINDS systems are scanning for suspicious material at a major train station on the East Coast and a military base in New Jersey, as well as being evaluated for airports and mail facilities.

Scientists at the Livermore lab are working on an even more futuristic nuclear detector that could sense a bomb made of highly enriched uranium, which emits little radiation and is easily shielded.

Other countries are coming on board. A year ago, the European Union and the US agreed to cooperate on development of sensor technology.

Canada last year noted that its Ottawa International Airport would be getting detectors that would sense material likely to be in a dirty bomb, a non-nuclear device that uses conventional explosives.

Even local entities are getting involved. Last year several Las Vegas hotels announced deployment of nuclear and chemical sensors.

MetroRail in the nation's capital has been moving to upgrade its chemical and biological sensors.

Few experts, however - Oxford included - believe WMD sensors are enough.

Most agree the primary defensive layer must be locking down and monitoring with new smart detectors the insecure nuclear materials in places like the research reactors of the former Soviet Union.

The next layer would be smart sensors at ports overseas to screen cargo before it is loaded onto a ship bound for the US.

Some critics, though, say the bulk of funds should be spent securing loose nuclear material overseas and creating sensor networks to make sure that it doesn't end up in the wrong hands. If it did, the argument goes, all the sensors in the world might not be enough.

"This could become a Maginot line for us, creating a false sense of security," says Randall Larsen, CEO of Homeland Security Associates, an Arlington, Va., consulting firm. "Anyone smart enough to get this stuff could sneak it past detectors."

Still, other experts say sensor networks abroad combined with a last line of defense in the US are critical.

"If you have a better defensive system, the attacker has to work that much harder, recruit more people, put on more shielding," says Mr. Wagner. "The bigger the operation gets, the better chance our people have of detecting and stopping it."

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