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01/08/2004
Port Security
Of the issues pertaining to Homeland Security, these days
securing America’s ports is as important as they come, yet we all
know that given the lack of technology and systems in place it’s
virtually impossible to prevent a serious terrorist attack.
Over $500 billion of goods are shipped in and out of the U.S.
from some 178,000 foreign businesses each year, all in 20- and
40-foot containers. On an average day 19,000 new boxes enter
U.S. ports and a system that is built for speed is still at least a
year from being able to efficiently screen each container for
deadly weapons.
The ports of Los Angeles / Long Branch and New York / New
Jersey by most estimates handle about 60% of the total cargo
traffic in any given day and an estimated 40% of American trade
in one form or another depends on containers that flow through
the former complex. But aside from these two seaports, there are
about another 350 in which goods reach the U.S.
No doubt, since 9/11 screening has been tightened for chemical /
biological weapons, explosives, missiles or components for
nuclear weapons, but as Fen Montaigne points out in an article
for the January 2004 issue of Smithsonian, weapons can easily be
shipped in small batches, on different containers, thus eluding
detection by even the most sophisticated gamma-ray machines
and radiation devices. ABC News, for example, has twice been
able to smuggle in radioactive material from Eastern Europe by
this method.
“The system is absolutely wide open, and anybody with 3,000
bucks in Asia and a little less in Europe can get a box delivered
to their lot or home and they can load it to the gills with whatever
they want, close it with a 50-cent lead seal, and it’s off to the
races,” says Stephen E. Flynn, a retired Coast Guard commander
and an expert on seaport security. “As I look at the cargo
transport system today, when I wake up each morning and see
that we haven’t had an attack, I just declare ourselves lucky. The
secretary of the treasury, the secretary of defense, the secretary
of commerce, the secretary of state, the president of the United
States should be tossing and turning at night knowing that this
system has so little security.”
In the old days, U.S. Customs inspectors merely looked for drugs
and it was well known that security was lax. But these days
Customs requires all shippers to declare the contents of each
container 24 hours before they’re loaded onto a freighter bound
for the U.S. The new computer systems then scan the manifests
for unknown importers, manufacturers or shippers that have
never delivered here before.
The big debate internally is whether or not the current
technology could detect a small nuclear bomb. Thus far, the
administration has spent about $350 million on upgrading
security, but the U.S. Coast Guard estimates it needs over $1
billion more just in 2004 alone.
When one looks at the overall situation, any kind of significant
attack on a port would cripple the economy.
“What I’m almost certain of, from talking with people at senior
levels of government, is that if we have a major event involving
one of our ports and a container, we will stand down the system,”
says Flynn, now a senior fellow for national security at the
Council on Foreign Relations. “We will shut it off until we sort
it out. Now, how is the president, when he stands in front of the
American people after a very visible and deadly act, going to
reassure them that these other containers can roll across our
borders and into our ports without worrying about them?”
And as reporter Montaigne adds, another big problem is simply
motivation. Picture, day after day after day, the security guards
and customs agents find nothing. Of course that’s a job well
done, but many are now concerned how our Customs personnel
can possibly stay on de facto “orange alert,” 365 days a year. It’s
only human nature that after a while you lose your edge or you
become susceptible to corruption.
Hott Spotts returns January 15.
Brian Trumbore
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