*EPF511 09/10/2004
U.S. Continues Efforts to Reduce Aviation Security Vulnerabilities
(Air cargo, shoulder-fired missiles among remaining risks) (1180)

By Andrzej Zwaniecki
Washington File Staff Writer

(This article is the third in a five-part series on transportation security.)

Washington -- With major improvements in aviation security already in place, the Bush administration is moving to enhance anti-terrorism protections for air passengers and airlines.

After terrorists crashed commercial airlines into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington on September 11, 2001, the administration's and Congress' transportation security efforts concentrated on civil aviation.

The Aviation and Transportation Security Act (ATSA) passed by Congress only a few months after the tragedy created a new federal agency responsible for transportation security -- the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) -- and a new federal passenger-screening workforce. It also mandated screening all checked baggage for explosives, placing armed plainclothes officers, known as air marshals, on selected flights and reinforcing cockpit doors on all airliners. These requirements, along with a number of others, have been implemented.

John Meenan, executive vice president of the Air Transportation Association, an airline industry trade group, said that the level of aviation security today is "markedly" better than it was on that September 11, 2001.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) also noted improvements. In its September 2003 report, the congressional investigative arm said that TSA has made "considerable" progress in meeting congressional mandates designed to increase aviation security.

But GAO found vulnerabilities in the new aviation security regime including in air cargo and airports' perimeter protections. At least one private security expert said that the enhancements were not up to the level they should be three years after the terrorist attacks.

"Today we do not have anything resembling real security to protect the commercial aviation system and the traveling public," David Forbes president of Colorado-based BoydForbes Security, said in his strongly worded January report.

MORE RISKS TO ADDRESS

Representative John Mica, Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Aviation Subcommittee, and other congressional leaders have introduced several bills intended to eliminate, or at least mitigate, vulnerabilities in U.S. aviation protection systems ranging from measures requiring self-defense training for flight and cabin crews to establishing a program for arming cargo pilots. Some of these measures have been enacted, and others are still moving through Congress.

Of particular concern to Congress has been the possibility of terrorists using shoulder-fired missiles, or man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), against commercial planes. Mica called it one of the most significant threats to commercial aviation in addition to explosives. Such missiles were recently used against a commercial airliner in Kenya and against a cargo plane in Iraq.

The Group of Eight (G8) major industrialized countries and other nations agreed through an international arrangement for dual-use technologies to put export controls on MANPADS. But that measure, considered not entirely effective by some security experts, has not addressed the thousands of missiles believed by security experts to be available on the black market.

In July, the House of Representatives passed a bill that calls on the president to pursue stronger international efforts to limit the availability and proliferation of MANPADS and directs the administration to expedite the approval process for new technologies. The Senate has not acted on the bill yet.

In the spring, airports in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington and other cities intensified security patrols around their boundaries and introduced other security measures to guard against MANPADS, according to news reports. The Coast Guard began surveillance of shorelines adjacent to airports.

In August, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported progress in the development of two prototype antimissile systems that aim to adapt the existing military missile-defense technologies for civilian use. It said that those prototypes are to be built and tested in the next 18 months.

Another threat on which Congress has focused its attention is air-cargo security. Security experts and congressmen have been worried that, with passenger security tight, terrorists might try to use air shipments to place explosives or incendiary devices on board all-cargo planes or in cargo holds of passenger planes.

In November 2003, TSA published a plan that calls for setting up a system that would allow for prescreening of all air shipments to identify suspicious cargo and physically or by other means inspecting all high-risk cargo. It also commits TSA to establishing an enhanced database of vetted "known" shippers for cargo profiling, banning cargo from unknown shippers and strengthening the security of the air cargo operating areas at airports. As part of the plan, TSA also requires both domestic and foreign airlines to conduct random inspections of commercial planes carrying cargo on flights within, into and out of the United States.

In 2003, GAO found that less than 5 percent of cargo placed on U.S. passenger airplanes is physically inspected and identified other security deficiencies.

ADDING SECURITY LAYERS

In addition to targeting high-risk U.S.-destined cargo before it arrives at a U.S. airport, the administration would like to prescreen U.S.-bound passengers at selected foreign airports before they board a plane. Currently, passenger manifests are filed by airlines only after takeoff.

As the first step in this direction, in September the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency in the DHS placed officers at the Warsaw airport to verify travel documents of passengers flying to New York and Chicago and to check their names against the U.S. terrorist watch list. CBP Commissioner Robert Bonner said that the CBP officers would have no legal authority and would only advise passengers with deficient documents that they would likely be denied entry on arrival to a U.S. airport. He said, however, he is convinced that the Polish authorities and airlines will prevent any passenger whose name matches an entry on the U.S. terrorist watch list from boarding a flight to the United States.

Announcing the program September 8, Bonner said that CBP is discussing similar arrangements with other countries. In a March press interview, he said that CBP would like to place its inspectors at seven international airports.

The DHS also is negotiating with European countries enhanced air security procedures that would allow for an orderly response to an increased threat of terrorist attacks against airlines, including the use of sky marshals, Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Asa Hutchinson said in February. More than a dozen transatlantic and other flights were cancelled in December 2003 and January because of such a threat. Since December 2003 the DHS has required foreign carriers to place sky marshals on designated international flights to, from or over the United States.

Although some countries in response requested air marshal training or expressed an interest in developing an air marshal program, other nations, particularly Scandinavian ones, had reservations about the requirement, Hutchinson said in April. Some foreign airlines said they would rather cancel flights to the United States than introduce armed guards onboard. Hutchinson said that some countries might be able to use security measures other than armed sky marshals on high-risk flights.

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

Return to Public File Main Page

Return to Public Table of Contents