DHS Strains As Goals, Mandates Go Unmet

"You have management issues, political pressure, the complexity of what is arguably a very tough thing to do, all within an unreasonable deadline and it's kind of the old adage -- we can hurry up and do it fast, or we can take a little bit longer and do it right," said George W. Foresman, DHS assistant secretary for preparedness from 2005 to 2007. "External pressures on DHS made this a hurry-up-and-do-it-fast."

Chertoff disputed congressional investigators' findings based on DHS work schedules indicating that completion of the first phase of the virtual fence may be delayed up to three years, including a planned expansion of the tower system to another stretch in Arizona -- 37 miles near Yuma -- and a span near El Paso.

Instead, he said that technical problems discovered in a 28-mile pilot project south of Tucson caused only a half-year delay, produced "functionally workable" tools that are helping agents now, and are only a small part of a broad deployment of other ground, aerial and mobile sensors.

But contractor Boeing Corp., which received about $18 million for its work, is being paid an additional $60 million to replace the program's key component and original goal, better software to link sensors and users. Boeing will also test and integrate equipment in laboratories instead of the field and will work more closely with Border Patrol agents, DHS and company officials said.

When DHS announced the fence contract in September 2006 and called for an operational pilot by June 2007, Chertoff said that "we're not interested in performing science experiments on the border," and he emphasized the need for proven technology. "A common complaint about government is there's a lot of lofty rhetoric, but there's no metrics, there's no holding to deadlines, and the achievement always falls short of what the original proposal is. Well, we're very mindful of that," he said.

In May 2006, however, then-Rep. Martin O. Sabo (Minn.), ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations homeland security subcommittee, had warned Chertoff in a letter that DHS's contract solicitation did not set a price tag for providing up to "6,000 miles of secure U.S. border" and failed to define its measure of success for controlling the border -- a benchmark for which DHS acknowledges it still has no wholly satisfactory definition.

"The only conclusion I can reach is that the SBINET solicitation is a public relations document," Sabo said in his letter. "It provides the Administration with the cover to say that you are doing something to secure the borders."

DHS and its precursors had already been stung by two earlier U.S. border surveillance programs, spending $429 million between 1998 and 2005 and reaping a warning system triggered by insects, horses and weather, DHS's inspector general reported in December 2005. Border Patrol agents eventually ignored 60 percent of the sensor alerts, while 90 percent of the rest were false alarms and only 1 percent led to arrests.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), a former chairman of the Senate Appropriations homeland security subcommittee, this week called the pilot fence -- known as Project 28 -- a good-news, bad-news story: It did not work as expected, he said, but its cost was curbed by DHS leaders. Funding a virtual fence was politically necessary for Bush's immigration overhaul to advance, Gregg said, but "I think everyone presumed that once we funded it, it would work." He added: "I don't know where we go from here."

DHS officials are scheduled to testify before the House spending panel today about whether the agency's December 2006 projection that it could secure the border by 2011 with technology, physical fencing and vehicle barriers for $7.6 billion will change. Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), former chairman and now the panel's ranking minority member, called "delays and excuses within the Secure Border Initiative . . . unacceptable. We need to know when it will work, how much it will cost and what we are paying for."

Michael P. Jackson, deputy secretary from 2005 until October 2007, said Americans must learn to allow DHS to balance risks against resources, whether in controlling the border, securing inbound sea cargo or tightening airport security.

"People keep demanding with each new homeland security challenge, 'Fix this today,' " Jackson said. "DHS is not funded to address every one, there's not time to do every one, and some of the increased effort needed to eliminate all risk for a given problem ends up . . . wasting time, focus and dollars."

Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.