March 28 (Bloomberg) -- Senators said a report that investigators smuggled enough radioactive material to build two ``dirty'' bombs into the U.S. called into question the Bush administration's efforts to secure the borders.

The sting operation is described in one of three Government Accountability Office reports that was released today. The reports also accuse the Bush administration of being slow to deploy equipment that would detect radioactive materials and say corrupt foreign border officials and poor maintenance of detection devices have left the U.S. vulnerable to terror plots.

Senator Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican who heads the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which held the hearing, said he was ``alarmed'' at the ease with which investigators bought the unspecified radiological material and transported it across the northern and southern U.S. borders. Such materials could be used to build a dirty bomb, which uses explosives to disperse radiation.

``The reality is that it is easier to buy low-grade radioactive material for a dirty bomb than it is to buy cold medicine that has been restricted because of the meth epidemic,'' Coleman said, referring to curbs on the purchase of over-the- counter medications that can be used to make the illegal drug methamphetamine.

662 Incidents

About 662 known attempts to smuggle nuclear or radiological materials across borders around the world have been made since the end of 2004, said Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the panel's senior Democrat, citing an International Atomic Energy Agency study.

``Both the opportunity for terrorists to target legitimate global supply chains remain plentiful and the motivation for doing so is only growing,'' said Stephen Flynn, a retired Coast Guard commander who is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. ``We are living on borrowed time.''

The GAO reports are the culmination of a three-year, bipartisan investigation of the detection equipment, senior Senate staffers told reporters yesterday.

Cesium-137

On Dec. 14, two teams of investigators -- one on the Canadian border, the other on the Mexican border -- put radioactive material in rental cars and attempted to cross over into the U.S. Kristi Clemens, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said the radiological material was cesium-137.

Detection equipment alerted authorities at both borders of the radioactive materials. When questioned, the investigators said they needed the material to calibrate construction equipment, a common use.

The investigators presented the authorities with counterfeit Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses and freight inventories.

Concerns about border security have been heightened in the past month because of the bid by DP World, a Dubai state-owned company, to operate terminals at six major U.S. ports. Under pressure from Congress, DP World said earlier this month it would divest itself of the U.S. operations.

Provisions stemming from the reports' findings may be added to port security legislation being considered by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the senior staffers said.

Coleman and the GAO investigators criticized the NRC for not taking more seriously the reports' findings.

Smoke Detectors

David McIntyre, an NRC spokesman, said the GAO investigators were transporting material with a level of radiation equal to the amount found in smoke detectors, and used overly cautiously guidelines from the National Institute of Standards and Technology to assess the risk.

``NIST isn't the agency working on this 24/7,'' he said. ``It isn't losing sleep over this at night like our people are.''

One of the reports also faulted the Homeland Security Department for getting bogged down in contentious negotiations with port authorities and terminal operators over installing radiation-detection equipment. State authorities and companies are concerned the nuclear screening will slow commerce through ports, the GAO report said.

The subcommittee staffers said only about 40 percent of ship-borne cargo has been screened, making it improbable Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff will be able to ensure full coverage anytime soon.

Screening

Vayl Oxford, director of the department's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, said 51 percent of ship-borne cargo is being screened and that 98 percent will be screened by the end of next year. He said that negotiations with port authorities and companies won't prevent the department from meeting its goals.

``Installations will proceed according to schedule,'' he said.

McIntyre, the NRC spokesman, said the agency has removed documents from its Web site to make it more difficult to forge them and is compiling a database of people and groups with NRC licenses for radioactive material.

A license is required in some cases for possessing nuclear material, the senior subcommittee staffers said. Some of the material can be bought on line, they said.

Elusive Goal

A second GAO report said that as of December the Homeland Security Department has placed 670 monitors and more than 19,000 handheld radiation devices at ports around the country. At the current pace, the department will fail to meet its goal for installing 3,034 devices by September 2009.

To reach the goal, the department would need to install 52 monitors a month for the next four years, though its current installation rate is 22 a month, the report said.

The ports at Miami and Savannah, Georgia are among those without the devices they need, the subcommittee staffers said.

The department is using technically sophisticated equipment, which will probably lead to a cost overrun of $342 million, the report said.

Oxford, the nuclear detection office director, said the estimate was incorrect.

``While progress has been made, the Department of Homeland Security must dramatically step up the deployment of radiation detectors to keep pace with the danger we are facing at some of our nation's largest ports,'' Coleman said.

`Corrupt' Officials

The subcommittee staffers praised the Energy Department's oversight of a program that equips foreign border authorities with nuclear-detection equipment. Still, the trustworthiness of authorities at some facilities, particularly in Russia, poses a problem for the U.S., the third GAO report said.

U.S. officials ``told us they are concerned that corrupt foreign border security personnel could compromise the effectiveness of U.S.-funded radiation detection equipment by either turning off equipment or ignoring alarms,'' the report said.

Some equipment only detects gamma radiation and not neutron radiation, making it less effective. The Energy Department has kept the devices operational, though it hasn't upgraded most of them because the refurbishment would require new agreements with the countries involved, the report said.

``As the GAO report states, we are on the right track,'' said Julianne Smith, a spokeswoman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, an Energy Department unit involved with the program. ``Addressing corruption in other countries is a key priority for NNSA, and we are also working aggressively to bring all equipment up to our standards.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Bliss in Washington at jbliss@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 28, 2006 12:00 EST