Man's Best Friend Still Best Terror Deterrent

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff calls them, a "state-of-the-art anti-terrorist tool."

Explosives-detecting dogs may be America's best defense against suicide bombers.
Paul Waggoner, the director of Auburn University's Canine and Detection Research Institute, says dogs' sense of smell is 100 to 10,000 times more powerful than human noses. Officials say that dogs are a better tool for finding potential suicide bombers than random passenger searches or security cameras.

Jim Cavanaugh, the ATF special agent in charge of the Washington field office. "We haven't found anything better."

There are several advantages to using dogs: they are mobile; curious; have the ability to detect one smell from among many; and can detect guns and ammunition on people and in cars and containers.