Fear of terror weapons drives tech funding.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Homeland Security

* With the nation in the throes of the so-called "long war," it is no surprise that the bulk of the Department of Homeland Security's research dollars is going toward technologies designed to prevent terrorist attacks.

It is widely believed that Al Qaida wants to top 9/11 with an even more horrific assault on the United States by using a weapon of mass destruction. That has led analysts to put forth myriad scenarios such as a nuclear bomb in a shipping container, the poisoning of a city's water supply or a bio-weapon unleashed on the populace. And for every scenario, there is a vendor, lawmaker or policy wonk proffering a technological solution.

DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff has said repeatedly that preventing a nuclear bomb from entering the United States is one of the department's top priorities. Meanwhile, the train bombings in London and Madrid, as well as the alleged plot this summer to blow up airliners over the Atlantic with liquid explosives, shows that conventional threats are still on terrorist organizations' menus.

As the department makes efforts to guard against these myriad threats, the science and technology directorate has been in a state of flux, with three assistant secretaries taking their seats this year. It first took on the challenge of consolidating the research and development programs from DHS' legacy agencies. Then a presidential directive created a separate entity, the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, thus further complicating the reorganization.

The current director of science and technology, retired Navy Rear Adm. Jay Cohen, has vowed before Congress to strengthen the directorate's management practices. Cohen came to DHS after five and half years leading the Office of Naval Research. He holds an engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and led the Navy's Y2K project office.

DHS and its legacy agencies have had their share of high-profile failures. Hurricane Katrina pointed out shortcomings in preparedness and communications interoperability. Efforts to in the 1990s to secure the borders using surveillance technology failed to stem the tide of illegal migrants. The transportation worker identity card, designed to verify the identity of port workers, has missed several deadlines due to mismanagement and concerns that the technology won't work in a corrosive sea environment. More recently, the Transportation Security Agency put a halt to deliveries of "puffer" machines, which detect the...