PORT VULNERABILITY TO TERRORIST ATTACK
IS “TERRIFYING,” LIEBERMAN SAYS
HE CALLS FOR BETTER USE OF TECHNOLOGY, AGENCY REORGANIZATION
December 6, 2001
WASHINGTON - Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman
Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., Thursday
said the high vulnerability of the nation’s 400 shipping
ports to terrorist attack was “literally terrifying” and
called for systemic revisions in how ports are secured.
“U.S. ports are our nation's key transportation link
for global trade, and yet there are no federal standards for
port security and no single federal agency overseeing the 11.6
million shipping containers, 11.5 million trucks, 2.2 million
railcars, 211,000 vessels, and 489 million people that passed
through U.S. border inspection systems last year,” Lieberman
said. “The
plain fact is that the movement of goods into the U.S. - five
million tons per day - is now so efficient that port security
has been sacrificed. It
is simply impossible to physically inspect more than a small
sample of containers as they arrive in the U.S.
Less than one percent are actually examined.”
The vulnerability of ports, in turn, leads to potential
danger along our highways, rails and waterways.
Containers arriving from Europe, Asia or Canada are
virtually always inspected
only at their final destinations, rather than at the arrival
port, meaning at any given time, authorities have virtually no
idea about the contents of thousands of multi-ton containers
traveling on trucks, trains or barges.
“The ease with which a terrorist might smuggle
chemical, biological or, at some point, even nuclear weapons
in a container, without detection, is, literally
terrifying,” Lieberman said.
Federal agencies charged with safeguarding harbors are
handicapped by a lack of resources and failure to coordinate
and communicate with one another, the Chairman noted.
In addition, significant concerns have been raised
about federal agency cooperation with state and local
governments, as well as their access to national security
intelligence.
“Our ports don’t need a bail out.
They just need a sensible strategy to keep them safe
and sound economic hubs.
We must establish a much higher level of safety than we
have at present, without sacrificing the speed and efficiency
with which we now move goods around the globe.”
Lieberman expressed interest in several proposals
offered by hearing witnesses, including
-
pushing back our borders to require inspections at
ports of embarkation, rather than final destinations.
-
using technologies such as electronic seals and alarms
on containers, and x-rays and global positioning satellite
systems to track goods throughout their shipping routes.
-
reorganizing the federal government to improve
coordination and communication between agencies in charge of
port security with the state, local and private sectors.
Witness F. Amanda DeBusk, a former member of the
Commission on Crime and Security in U.S. Seaports, said at
least15 federal agencies have jurisdiction at the nation’s
seaports - the primary ones being the Coast Guard, the Customs
Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service - in
addition to scores of state and local agencies and private
sector concerns. Coordinating
these groups would be a “monumental undertaking,” she
said. Both she
and witness Stephen Flynn, a national security fellow at the
Council on Foreign Relations, suggested a Department of
National Homeland Security could help coordinate these
agencies. Lieberman
has introduced legislation with Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.,
that would combine the
Coast Guard, the Customs Service, and the Border Patrol - as
well as other agencies - in a Department of National Homeland
Security.
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