[Mb-civic] Man's Best Terror Deterrent Still Somewhat-Reliable Dog - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Man's Best Terror Deterrent Still Somewhat-Reliable Dog

By Sari Horwitz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 12, 2005; Page A01

Deep underneath downtown Washington on a recent morning, law enforcement 
officers from four agencies were "sweeping" Metro stations, moving from 
trash cans and orange cones to Farecard machines and trains, looking for 
dynamite, C4, triacetone triperoxide and other explosives. They were 
using what is believed to be the most powerful defense against the type 
of terrorist attacks that killed 56 people last month in London: dogs.

The ability of dogs to detect 19,000 types of explosives makes them more 
effective at catching potential suicide bombers than security cameras or 
random passenger searches, officials said. Homeland Security Secretary 
Michael Chertoff yesterday visited a Virginia training facility for 
police dogs, calling them a "state-of-the-art anti-terrorist tool."

Still, terrorism experts and the police officers who work with the dogs 
caution that the canine units can offer, at best, spotty protection on 
mass transit.

Local and federal agencies have too few dogs to cover the nation's 
transit systems, which carry 14 million people daily. Many of the dogs 
can work for only about a half-hour before they need a break. And their 
ability to find explosives depends on the quantity and proximity of the 
material, the strength of the odor, the temperature and direction of the 
wind.

Private companies, laboratories and government research centers are 
working to develop technologies to replace or help the dogs. The Defense 
Department is conducting experiments with rats, wasps, honeybees and 
yeast to find other ways to detect explosives. Marines in Iraq have 
experimented with a $28,000 hand-held device called Fido that some of 
them believe can find explosives as well as a trained dog.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/11/AR2005081102148.html

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