The US won’t meet a 2012 deadline for scanning all maritime cargo for nuclear devices and other weapons because of costs and inadequate technology, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said.

Placing radiation detection and imaging equipment in 2,100 shipping lanes worldwide that handle cargo bound for US ports would cost $16.8 billion, Napolitano told a Senate panel.
In addition, there would be “very high” operating expenses and “huge costs” borne by foreign governments, she said.

“Installing equipment and placing personnel at all of these ports, even the tiny ones, would strain government resources without a guarantee of results,” Napolitano said.

The comments show the challenge the Obama administration faces in meeting targets set by Congress in a 2007 law enacting recommendations of the group known as the 9/11 Commission. The law set a July 2012 deadline for scanning each container before it is loaded on a vessel heading to the US.

Under a pilot project begun in October 2007, Homeland’s Customs and Border Patrol was able to scan only 3 percent to 5 percent of U.S.-bound containers on average at ports in Hong Kong and Busan, South Korea, according to a Government Accountability Office report released today. The ports together account for almost 17 percent containers shipped to the US.

Efforts at ports in the pilot project have been hampered by equipment breakdowns, poor-quality scanning images and logistical difficulties of transferring containers to scanning areas, GAO found.

‘False sense of security’

The Port of Hong Kong has since discontinued its participation in the pilot project, according to the GAO. Other ports in the pilot are in Southampton, UK; Qasim, Pakistan; Puerto Cortes, Honduras; and Salalah, Oman, according to Napolitano’s testimony.

“The requirement to scan all US-bound cargo, regardless of risk, at every foreign port is misguided and provides a truly false sense of security,” Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said in a statement commenting on the GAO report. She is the top Republican on the homeland security committee.

Customs and Border Patrol have been able to scan 54 percent to 86 percent of containers at the smaller ports in Southampton, Qasim and Puerto Cortes, according to GAO.

Those ports together account for 2.4 percent of containers shipped to the US.