*EPF508 09/10/2004
U.S. Advances Maritime Security, Aims to Do More, Officials Say
(Container security key to success(This article is the fourth in a five-part series on transportation security.) (1340)

By Andrzej Zwaniecki
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- U.S. officials say the Bush administration has significantly strengthened maritime security although they acknowledge that more needs to be done to better protect ports and cargo containers.

"We've made great strides within our shores and on the global stage to secure the international supply chain," a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) official, Robert Perez, said in an August 26 interview.

Congress and the shipping industry also have noticed progress. Congressional leaders on several occasions complimented the U.S. Coast Guard for moving aggressively to implement the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002, which was designed to make U.S. ports, waterways and coastal facilities more secure.

Shippers view the new level of maritime security as being a step in the right direction. "Certainly there is better security today than before September 11," Bill Clark, executive director of the American Institute for Shippers Associations, said in an August 26 interview.

MORE TO BE DONE

Congressional leaders and maritime security experts believe, however, that the progress achieved so far in improving maritime transportation security is insufficient. Senator John McCain, Republican chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, and Senator Fritz Hollings, the committee's senior Democrat, have expressed concern about the adequacy of security at U.S. ports.

"Ports remain exposed and susceptible to acts of terrorism that could cause a large loss of life and economic disruption," they said in a May 12 letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), an investigative arm of Congress.

GAO, in its June 30 report, said that every U.S. port facility security plan submitted to the Coast Guard for approval was deficient and that only 120 ports had taken steps to improve those plans by mid-June.

However, Tony Regalbuto, chief of policy and planning for the Coast Guard's port security directorate, said that by the July 1 deadline, over 99 percent port facilities had amended their plans or introduced interim security measures to comply with the federal regulations. Of the 3,300 port terminals, only 19 were required to restrict or suspend their operations due to lack of appropriate security measures, he said in a September 2 interview.

Stephen Flynn, a former U.S. Coast Guard commander and now a private security expert, said he considers maritime transportation "one of our nation's most serious vulnerabilities."

Flynn, Clark and some congressional leaders are calling for stronger action to close gaps in U.S. port protections and mitigate vulnerabilities in maritime transportation.

Perez, director of the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism program, said CBP, an agency in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), shares the view that more needs to be done. But he said that the critics should not forget that the terrorist threat evolves and that U.S. programs and initiatives must be flexible enough to evolve too.

Perez's boss, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, said in June: "As we shore up one vulnerability, they [terrorists] are likely to look to uncover another."

Another DHS official, Al Gina, CBP director of the Container Security Initiative (CSI), said, "We would lose credibility if we said we are going to implement the system that would prevent any terrorist attack from ever happening within the maritime industry."

Nevertheless, Gina said, CBP felt "extremely" confident that U.S. authorities have acquired a capability, or are close to acquiring it, to "neutralize" the impact of a terrorist attack on trade -- to open within hours trade lanes and keep cargo moving.

WHAT IS IN A CARGO CONTAINER?

With 90 to 95 percent of trade by volume flowing in cargo containers, security of these containers is generally perceived as an element critical to the overall maritime security. The concern is that terrorists may try to smuggle their operatives, a "dirty" bomb (a conventional explosive packaged with radioactive material, which scatters when the bomb goes off) or weapons of mass destruction in a container to mount an attack on coastal facilities or inside a large U.S. city.

CBP officials repeatedly said that inspecting all or even a majority of 20,000 containers arriving daily at U.S. ports was not feasible because it would require tremendous resources and, in all likelihood, would impede the flow of trade. So instead, CBP decided to focus on high-risk cargo.

They also argue that targeting high-risk U.S.-bound cargo before it left a foreign port would make anti-terrorist protections more effective because it would give U.S. law enforcement more time to respond to a threat and possibly prevent an attack. To that end, CBP established the CSI, which seeks through bilateral negotiations to place U.S. customs inspectors at foreign ports with the most U.S.-destined container traffic. The inspectors identify high-risk containers for physical examination by their local counterparts.

By the end of 2004, CBP plans to increase the number of participants in the program from 25 now to 34-35 ports, which ship about 75 percent by volume of all U.S.-bound container cargo, Gina said. In 2005, CBP intends to add to this group a few ports that, while not large, tend to ship higher-risk, U.S.-destined cargo, he added.

Still, some congressional leaders and security experts view containers as the weakest spot in the U.S. antiterrorist defenses.

Perez "respectfully" disagrees with that perception. He said it probably stems from the fact that now more people than ever understand how complex and global the container issue is.

One of the things that can be done to improve supply chain security, he said, is to implement a technology that would allow CBP to control a container from the moment it is loaded until the moment it is unloaded.

CBP is currently testing the so-called "smart box," a secure seal placed on the container plus a device inside the container that transmits information about the shipment's location and records any attempts to tamper with the container.

Even now, all cargo identified as high- or potential-risk is examined, another CBP official, Charles Bartoldus, said.

CBP officers scan high-risk containers using advanced X-ray and radiation screening equipment and some containers are taken to a secure location for more thorough inspection, Ridge said in June.

COAST GUARD'S EYES AND EARS

CSI is only one of several anti-terrorist tools the U.S. government has at its disposal. With the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code adopted by 148 countries, the Coast Guard, which is responsible for the code's enforcement in the United States, can subject a foreign ship that lacks proper security credentials or comes from a non-compliant port to additional scrutiny and precautions and, as a last resort, deny it entry to a U.S. port.

Critics say, however, that the Coast Guard needs more resources to do the job right. Flynn said that the Coast Guard needs, for example, a ship-tracking capability.

"While the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] can track planes flying throughout our airspace, the U.S. government currently has no means to do the same with ships, " he said.

Regalbuto said that building the FAA tracking system covering the entire country required more than three years. The Coast Guard is building shore-side infrastructure to receive automatic identification system (AIS) signals that ships coming to the United States are required to send, he said.

Simultaneously, Regalbuto said, the Coast Guard continues to work with the International Maritime Organization on a long-range system, which would allow it to track and monitor ships near U.S. territorial waters.

A July GAO report said that the total cost and completion time for AIS are uncertain.

Regalbuto said that the Coast Guard is installing AIS equipment on its aircraft and ships so they can identify commercial ships that are operating in their vicinity.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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