Boeing given border project

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is teaming with one of the nation's leading aerospace companies to throw an array of technology — from mounted infrared cameras to tiny, hand-operated aerial drones — into the administration's goal of achieving operational control of the nation's borders within two years.

Boeing Integrated Defense Systems of St. Louis was awarded the project, potentially worth billions, in a hard-fought competition with four other industry teams.

Boeing was identified as the probable winner in press accounts earlier this week, but Bush administration officials and executives from the winning team provided more details on the so-called "virtual fence" at a news conference Thursday to officially announce the contract.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the first phase of the project will begin with a $67 million contract to secure a troublesome 28-mile stretch of the Southwest border near Tucson, Ariz., within eight months. Ultimately, the high-tech shield will stretch across all 6,000 miles of the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada at a cost expected to exceed $2 billion.

Chertoff has committed his department to achieving operational control of the border by 2008. The administration's efforts parallel a rancorous debate in Congress over Republican-led border security measures, including the proposed construction of a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Chertoff and other officials said the network will be built in segments, starting with the most heavily trafficked sections of the U.S.-Mexico border, and would be tailored according to the type of terrain and immigration and smuggling patterns.

When completed, it could include as many as 1,800 towers with sensors and high-resolution cameras linking mobile and stationary command-and-control centers. Border Patrol agents in the field could plug into the surveillance network through small handheld devices that would also enable them to do background checks on apprehended suspects.

The members of the winning team include Elbit Systems of America; Perot Systems Inc.; DRS Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group in Palm Bay, Fla.; a branch of L-3 Communications, based in Salt Lake City; Unisys Global Public Sector of Reston, Va.; and Lucent Technologies of Murray Hill, N.J.