A maritime challenge of staggering dimensions

Sea Power, May 2003 by Hessman, James D

The 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States killed more than 3,000 people and, according to Under Secretary of Defense Dov S. Zakheim, caused a "negative economic impact ... [of] three quarters of a trillion dollars, and climbing."

However, official Washington is far more concerned with preventing the next attack than toting up the cost of the last one. For example, the detonation of a nuclear weapon, concealed in any one of the estimated six million containers carried into the nation's seaports each year, could kill "tens of thousands of people" and virtually paralyze the U.S. economy, according to a new CRS (Congressional Research Service) report on Port and Maritime Security.

How to keep a "maritime 9/11" from happening is perhaps the most intractable problem facing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and two of its principal components, the U.S. Coast Guard and the new Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency (for-merly the U.S. Customs Service). One of the Coast Guard's principal missions is to protect U.S. ports and waterways; CBP has the primary responsibility for the inspection of cargoes, and of cargo containers, entering U.S. ports.

The dimensions of the extraordinarily difficult task confronting the two agencies were spelled out in grim detail in the 5 February CRS report, written by transportation analyst John F. Fritelli:

* An estimated 7,500 foreign-flag ships, manned by 200,000 foreign sailors, make more than 60,000 port calls annually at the 361 ports in the U.S. port system.

* More than three billion tons of oil and two billion tons of other cargo pass through those ports each year. Overall U.S. maritime trade, which now accounts for approximately 25 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, is expected to more than double within the next two decades.

* The more than six million cargo containers that enter the nation's seaports each year represent two thirds of the total value (as opposed to tonnage) of all U.S. maritime trade. CBP "physically inspects" only about two percent of the containers.

To meet the unprecedented challenge facing them, the Coast Guard and CBP have allocated additional manpower to their respective port- and cargo-security missions, and have initiated several programs designed to tighten security not only of port areas but also of merchant ships, the cargoes they carry, and their crews. The Coast Guard, for example, started a Sea Marshals program to put USCG security teams aboard merchant ships before they enter U.S. ports. The service also extended, to 96 hours, the previous 24-hour NOA (Notice of Arrival) system, which requires ships entering and leaving U.S. ports to provide detailed information about their cargo, crewmembers, and passengers (if any).

In addition, the Coast Guard: (1) has been carrying out its own assessments of port security to determine specific vulnerabilities; (2) has contracted with TRW Systems to carry out more detailed risk assessments of the nation's 55 largest ports; and (3) is working with the International Maritime Organization (IMO-an agency of the United Nations) to develop and enforce more stringent international standards that would improve port, ship, cargo, and personnel security.

Rear Adm. Larry L. Hereth, the service's director of port security, said last month at the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space Exposition in Washington, D.C., that 102 nations already are cooperating in "a huge international effort" to set standards for merchant ships that will improve port, ship, and cargo security on a global basis.

The common-sense approach taken by DHS is to detect and deter potential threats long before they escalate into clear and present dangers. In the maritime arena, this requires "identifying and intercepting threats well before they reach U.S. shores," said Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thomas H. Collins in his Maritime Strategy for Homeland Security, released in December 2002.

CBP also follows a forward-deployed strategy, according to U.S. Customs Commissioner Robert C. Bonner. At the 1 April Liner CEO Forum in Boston, he said that the agency's "primary inspectors ... at all ports of entry into the United States" are now equipped with radiation detection devices. He also told the Liner CEOs that a number of CBP personnel are working overseas with their "host-nation counterparts" to target so-called "high-risk" containers before they can be loaded aboard ship and transported to the United States.

CBP is now "close" to implementing its Container Security Initiative (CSI) at "most of the top 20 foreign ports representing over two-thirds of all cargo containers shipped to the United States," Bonner said. CSI requires, among other things, that incoming containers be screened "before they depart for U.S. ports of entry, rather than after they arrive on U.S. shores."

CBP, the Coast Guard, and other DHS agencies are relying on the private sector-as is the Department of Defense-to develop, test, and build the platforms, weapon systems, sensors, and electronics/ avionics systems needed both to fight the global war on terrorism and to protect the U.S. homeland. Under a program monitored by the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratories of Richland, Wash., for example, CBP has contracted for a large number of radiation-portal monitors to scan containers entering U.S. ports. The monitors, built by the Ludlum Company of Sweetwater, Texas, are designed to detect nuclear weapons, dirty bombs, and other radiation-emitting systems and devices.