For all the talk of scare tactics and politicking as another Sept. 11 rolled around, the fifth anniversary week actually offered a good chance to assess where things stand on homeland security.

Take just these areas of concern: ports of entry, chemical-plant security, and emergency communications. And weigh them against the top security concerns identified by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in his Senate testimony Sept. 12: preventing the introduction and use of weapons of mass destruction, stopping infiltration by terrorists, and preventing homegrown acts of terrorism.

Seaports. Improvements Chertoff identified in his Senate testimony: $10 billion spent on port security since 2004; all cargo containers entering the United States now assessed for risk, and high-risk containers are inspected; 80 percent of U.S.-bound cargo screened by U.S. inspectors at 44 overseas ports — 50 by year's end; 80 percent of containers arriving here will be screened for radiation by December.

Chertoff wants to move toward having 100 percent of cargo screening done overseas, but says it needs to be done by working with foreign governments and shippers, not with a deadline set by congressional mandate, as was recently attempted.

"What I don't want is feel-good legislation that sets unrealistic requirements," he said in an interview. "It's got to be done by working individually with each port to come up with a solution that gets us what we need so we can control our security."

Airports and airlines. What's new since 9/11: secure cockpit doors, armed pilots, more air marshals aboard flights, screenings of all passengers and baggage, two-finger biometric scans at many airports.

But checking passenger lists of incoming flights against terrorist watch lists isn't done fast enough. As Chertoff told the Senate: "We vet this passenger information a full 15 minutes after the plane takes off. That is simply too late."

Chertoff wants to check passenger data before takeoff, and he also hopes to guard against "unknown terrorists" by scanning all 10 fingerprints of visa applicants and others, and checking that information against data found at terrorist training camps or safe houses or on bomb fragments.

"We're going to have to tell the Europeans we really need to do this," Chertoff said. "We can't just cave in."

Chemical-plant security. "Poorly guarded toxic industrial chemicals represent the most severe and widespread mass-casualty vulnerability in America today." That's what Richard K. Falkenrath, New York City's deputy police commissioner for counterterrorism, told the Senate, and he faults Congress and the administration for a lack of action.

Homeland Security needs congressional authority to regulate chemical-plant safety, but lawmakers haven't been able to agree on a bill.

"I'd like to see the authority have tiers (of security) based on risk, to lay performance standards down," Chertoff said. "Not tell people, 'Here's the way you have to do it,' but say, 'Here's what you have to be able to do. You can find two or three ways to accomplish that, but at the end of the day, the test is, have you accomplished this level of security?' "

Emergency communications. Chertoff said the 10 largest cities had "command-level interoperability," which means various departments — fire, police, EMTs — can talk to one another as well as to state and federal officials if necessary. Other cities have this level of communication as well, but not all.

"Some communities have it because they've reached an agreement about ... what the rules will be about how you run the integrated system," Chertoff said. "But some communities can't agree.... We are doing a study ... which will evaluate and test interoperability in all 50 states and the 75 largest urban areas. It will identify where things have been done and where things have not been done, and that will be a pretty good road map for how to close those remaining gaps."

He expects the results of that study before 2007.

Of course, for any advance Chertoff touts, there are criticisms, often valid ones. And even the agency's continuing success in keeping the homeland attack-free since 9/11 is overshadowed by the much-criticized governmental response to Hurricane Katrina. Restoring trust in government could take longer than rebuilding New Orleans.

In the meantime, Chertoff is focused on his mission of building "an approach for homeland security that is something we can live with over the long term...a balanced, sensible approach to security that has us much safer, but safer in a smart way, and that respects the core of what this country's about."

Kevin Ferris is commentary page editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer.