Thread: Shipping Container Terror Threat Remains

HOMELAND INSECURITY
Shipping container terror threat remains
Study finds U.S. inspection plan doesn't include contingency for riskiest nations

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Posted: March 30, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern



© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com


Container ship at Port of Seattle

WASHINGTON – The 2002 Customs initiative to increase foreign inspections of cargo containers heading to the U.S. fails to include any contingency plans for the countries where terrorists are most active, says a new study in he Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

The program, called the Container Security Initiative, was designed to secure the U.S. maritime transportation system beyond U.S. borders – requiring inspections in foreign ports before cargo left for its destination in America.

The CSI screens shipping containers for weapons of mass destruction and other hazardous materials in the ports of dozens of cooperating countries. However, few nations associated with terrorism are among them.

The study, by researchers from the RAND Corp., the University of California, the Public Policy Institute of California and Beacon Economics, found the initiative focused on the largest and most active foreign ports rather than the riskiest or those most likely to be used by terrorists.

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Homeland security experts fear U.S. ports could be used by terrorists as either a destination for a weapon of mass destruction or as a conduit for smuggling one inside the country.

"Containers could be used for either of these threats," say the researchers. "Once packed for shipment, containers are rarely opened or inspected, leading security experts to fear that they could be used to transport something like a radiological dispersal device, or dirty bomb, for detonation at a U.S. port or inside the United States."

The study found that although the program has expanded rapidly, it still screens only a small portion of cargo coming from countries that are likely sources of terrorist activity.

"The use of containers for terrorism is not necessarily proportional to the number of containers flowing from a specific source port; rather, it is a deliberate event conditional upon the locations of terrorists and weaknesses in the security system," reported the study. "In order to improve the effectiveness of security efforts, planners will need to pay close attention to ports located in less secure parts of the world and to the likely shipping routes that terrorists might use."

The "nightmare scenario" pointed to by the researchers is one in which a container might be used to ship a nuclear bomb to the U.S., moved to a major city and detonated. They also point out that containers could be used for moving parts of such devices that would be assembled later.

Currently, under the CSI program, the first opportunity U.S. Customs authorities would have to screen such a container coming from a terrorist-supporting nation or a country where terrorists are known to operate would be in the U.S. arrival port. Those ports could include New York or Los Angeles or other major population centers where it would be too late to avoid a catastrophe.

"The results of this paper suggest several policy implications," said the authors. "Ports through which terrorist-related shipments are likely to flow should receive special attention. These may not be the biggest ports, but they may be the most important from a security standpoint."

Only 2 percent of cargo containers entering America's ports are ever inspected. And the inspections performed are often unreliable. For instance, ABC News, as part of an investigative story, shipped a container full of depleted uranium to a New York port. There were sufficient red flags to make it one of the one in 50 containers singled out for examination. Had radiation detectors been used, they would have indicated a problem. But they were not.

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I shudder to think of what will come in through the proposed Mexican ports.

Why we should trust any country, China for one could launch a attack by shipping bombs to the US and have them delivered to any where in the US ( they don‘t need to build any more missiles)… Oh, that’s right as one of our biggest trading partners China should be trusted because it’s good for big business. But really I could go thru a list of ways to bring this stuff in. The only way to be safe is for all the ships to be inspected out at sea by going thru every cargo hold. Our union offered to by our own radiation detection equipment to start a pilot a program, home land insecurity was interested. When a ship comes in we walk the whole ship many times right when it arrives, not quite as good as doing it at sea but better than what they're doing.. I’m not sure but I think the Coast Guard does do some ships at sea but they should do them all. The Coast Guard is in Iraq and we all know we are fighting "them over there right, so we don't need to protect ourselves over here. I guess most people know that the war on terror is a lie.. What good is it the be over there if we don't protect ourselves over here!