Billions misspent in post-Sept. 11 anti-terror buying / Screening at airports, borders still lags

Billions misspent in post-Sept. 11 anti-terror buying / Screening at airports, borders still lags: "Sunday, May 8, 2005

Washington -- After spending more than $4.5 billion on screening devices to monitor the nation's ports, borders, airports, mail and air, the federal government is moving to replace or alter much of the anti-terrorism equipment, concluding that it is ineffective, unreliable or too expensive to operate.
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Among the problems:

-- Radiation monitors at ports and borders that cannot differentiate between radiation emitted by a nuclear bomb and naturally occurring radiation from everyday material like cat litter or ceramic tile.

-- Air-monitoring equipment in major cities that is only marginally effective because not enough detectors were deployed, and those deployed were sometimes not properly calibrated or installed. They also do not produce results for up to 36 hours -- long after a biological attack would potentially infect thousands of people.

-- Passenger-screening equipment at airports that auditors have found is no more likely to detect whether someone is trying to carry a weapon or a bomb aboard a plane than screening systems used before federal screeners took over.

-- Postal Service machines that test only a small percentage of mail and look for anthrax but no other biological agents."