06:00 PM EST on Monday, March 13, 2006

Reported by: Mike Gooding

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Rep. Bobby Scott (D- 3^rd District) says the failed Arab port deal controversy may prove to be a good thing because it has opened people's eyes to the issue of port security.

He got a close look at one of the Virginia Port Authority’s primary anti-terrorism weapons.  The Vehicle and Cargo Inspection System, called VACIS, uses x-ray technology to view contents of cargo containers.

The problem is there aren’t enough of the $1 million devices, so inspectors can only look at about five percent of the nearly two million containers that pass through the port each year.

Monday, Rep. Scott said that has must change. “The war effort is a billion a week. You can fund a whole lot of million dollar machines for a billion dollars," he noted.

Virginia Port Authority Executive Director Robert Bray agrees that more funding is needed to keep up with technology.

"But the thing that has to be done in my judgment to satisfy the American public and to provide better security is to inspect electronically and with radiation detectors every container that's loaded overseas and again when a container comes off a ship before it goes inland.  It's expensive, but then, how expensive is it going to be to have another terrorist attack in this country," said Bray.

Rep. Scott, the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee’s Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security subcommittee, said the White House was too secretive on the Dubai Ports World deal.

"There hadn't been any congressional oversight to begin with. Then, we’'re going to vote on whether or not the deal ought to go through. Well, when that's your first line of defense, members of Congress in an election year deciding whether a port operation is safe, that's what ought to scare people to death."

The Coast Guard has called for $7 billion a year in port security equipment upgrades.  Thus far, Congress has appropriated about $750 million.