Congressman Jason Chaffetz, Flea Bitten and Foolish!
By Larry Johnson on July 13, 2011 at 10:43 PM in Current Affairs
A display of stupidity and hubris today by Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz left me shaking my head in disbelief. Chaffetz has decided that dogs ought to replace machines at airports and shoulder the task of looking for explosives:
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, led the dog caucus, arguing that canines are cheaper and less invasive than body scanners.
Dogs are exceptional at sensing explosives, do not require software upgrades, don’t depreciate with use and might even be able to detect bombs implanted under a person’s skin.
“The single best way to find a bomb-making device or bomb-making materials is the canine,” Chaffetz said.
And dogs are widely accepted by the public, he said.
Well, if ignorance is bliss than Jason is one damn happy fellow. Let me explain why he is so offbase.
For starters, I was the Deputy Director at State Department supervising the Anti-Terrorism Assistance Training Program and providing foreign countries bomb dogs was one of the things we did. I have evaluated bomb dogs in the field. So I have some personal expertise in this field.
Point one–Dogs don’t work 8 hour shifts. A dog has a limited attention span. They can work effectively for about 30 minutes and then need a break. To cover just one security checkpoint for a 24 hour period, for example, you would need at least 20 dogs. Don’t forget that if you have a dog then you have a handler. Normally the dog will live with the handler. So now you are adding an additional 20 men and women who, unlike the dogs, will get Federal health insurance and retirement benefits.
Point two–Dogs have a limited attention span and the lack of bombs at airports will degrade their capability. Dogs are dandy for sweeping an arena or enclosed area where the President will speak. It is a finite task and occupies a limited amount of time. At an airport the reality is that explosives are very, very rare. If you ask a dog to find a bomb and the dog works four hours and finds nothing you then have to take the dog out and give them a chance to find the thing you want them to. Dogs are trained in two different ways–they are rewarded with food or with play (there is a huge debate in the dog training community about which method is most effective, I’m not going to get into that morass here. I believe play is the more effective training reward.) Dogs are good at finding the needle in the haystack if you have just one haystack. But if you have a conveyor belt of hay that rarely has a needle the poor creature is screwed. The dog will get bored looking for something that isn’t there. Unless you have very disciplined handlers you run a real risk of the dog losing interest and losing capability. Chaffetz is dead wrong in asserting that “dogs don’t depreciate with use.” Yes they do.
Point three–POOP and PISS. Dogs have to answer nature’s call. Airports are not a poop friendly place for dogs. Take Washington’s Reagan National Airport as an example. You would need a minimum of 200 dogs. That’s a lot of dog waste to police up each day. You can’t send doggie to the men’s room to squat on a toilet.
Dogs are a very effective counter terrorism tool. But using dogs instead of machines at passenger screening checkpoints is foolish. It would be like using a hammer to cut wood. It is the wrong tool for the wrong task.
Too bad Congressman Chaffetz has not taken the time to educate himself on this before shooting off his mouth.
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