Napolitano: Homeland Security Can’t Screen All Cargo by 2012

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told lawmakers Wednesday that her agency won’t be able to screen all port cargo for radiological and nuclear threats by 2012, the Associated Press reported.

The agency screens almost all suspicious cargo, Napolitano told the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee.

But issues such as training and deploying U.S. officials to more than 700 foreign ports to scan cargo would make it impossible for DHS to meet the 2012 deadline.

Congress passed legislation in 2007 requiring that Homeland Security screen all 11.5 million containers that come into the United States each year.