Reporters finds border security porous

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- U.S. screeners failed to detect a shipment of depleted uranium in a container sent by ABC News from overseas as part of a test of port security.

The ABC News test was criticized by officials at the Department of Homeland Security, who assigned agents in at least four cities to investigate ABC personnel and news sources involved.

The project involved a shipment to Los Angeles of just less than 15 pounds of depleted uranium, a harmless substance that is legal to import into the United States. The uranium, in a steel pipe with a lead lining, was in a suitcase for the shipment.

"If they can't detect that, then they can't detect the real thing," explained Tom Cochran, a nuclear physicist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which lent the material to ABC News for the project.

Cochran said the highly enriched uranium used for nuclear weapons would, with slightly thicker shielding, give off a signature similar to depleted uranium in the screening devices currently being used by homeland security officials at ports.