Management Questions Underscore Port Security Dangers

Management Questions Underscore Port Security Dangers

Senator Byrd, the top Democratic member of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations panel, believes that questions raised about a United Arab Emirates (UAE) company's control of six of America's largest seaports shows just how vulnerable ports are to terrorist exploitation.

"Allowing this deal to go forward, when there are so many obvious problems, is just plain dumb," Byrd said. "It's time that we got smart about port security and serious about closing the gaps in our homeland defenses."

During the weekend, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff confirmed that the White House had cleared the way for UAE-owned Dubai Ports World to take charge of operations at the seaports in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, and New Orleans.

Concerns about the deal center on the fact that the UAE was one of three countries in the world to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan; that experts have pointed to the UAE as a key transfer point of illegal nuclear component shipments to North Korea and Iran; and that the FBI has cited the UAE as the money transfer center for the 9/11 hijackers as well as an obstacle in efforts to track and close banks containing funds for al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

"Port security is the soft underbelly of America's homeland defense. Millions of containers come into U.S. ports and are never checked. These containers could easily carry terrorists or weapons of mass destruction. But, instead of putting teeth into our port security measures, we have a White House that plays a shell game with money to beef up inspections at our seaports and increase security personnel," Byrd said.

Ships carry cargo generally in 40-foot containers, which are then transferred to trucks or trains for delivery in the United States. More than 11 million containers enter U.S. ports each year, but only about five percent are searched. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, some observers fear that a container-borne atomic bomb detonated in a U.S. port could wreak economic as well as physical havoc. Robert Bonner, the recently retired head of Customs and Border Protection within the federal Department of Homeland Security, has argued that such an attack would lead to a halt to container traffic worldwide for some time, bringing the world economy to its knees.

Fifteen federal agencies evaluated the current state of security at U.S. seaports and produced the "Report of the Interagency Commission on Crime and Security in U.S. Seaports" in April 1999. The report concluded that security was generally inadequate and that the vulnerability of seaports to a terrorist attack was high. The report found that there were no "widely accepted standards or guidelines for physical, procedural, and personnel security for seaports."

Despite these conclusions and the analysis of security experts around the country, the Administration has failed to budget sufficient port security resources to protect the American people.

In October 2004, Senator Byrd and key members of the House of Representatives offered an amendment that would have reversed the Bush Administration's underfunding of port security, but that effort was quashed by the Republican Congressional Leadership.

In October 2005, Byrd and key members of the House offered a proposal to invest an additional $150 million in port security grants -- to begin to meet the $5.4 billion that the Coast Guard estimates is needed to tighten protections at America's seaports. That proposal was rejected along party lines.

In the budget sent to the Congress earlier this month, the White House has, for the second year in a row, proposed to eliminate the port security grant program, and instead force port security to compete for limited dollars with rail and mass transit security, bus security, truck security, and buffer zone protection initiatives.

"Cutting back on homeland security funding will do absolutely nothing to stem the threat from terrorism. And giving this UAE company control of operations at some of the nation's busiest and most important seaports only underscores the fact that this Administration has its head in the sand when it comes to protecting the American people. The White House talks a good game on homeland security, but utterly fails to put enough money and the personnel into the effort," Byrd said.

Byrd noted that $173 million in port security funds, approved by Congress last October, has sat in the U.S. Treasury, unused and untouched. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security has not even told ports how to apply to receive the funding.

"This money will help to protect no one sitting in Washington. The Department of Homeland Security should get these funds to the ports and help to save lives, not let the dollars sit on a shelf in the Treasury," Byrd said.

http://byrd.senate.gov/newsroom/news_feb/uae_port_security.html