[Mb-civic] Port Problems Said To Dwarf New Fears - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Port Problems Said To Dwarf New Fears

By Paul Blustein and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, February 24, 2006; A06

For people who have grown anxious about U.S. port security because a 
Dubai company may soon manage operations at six container terminals on 
the East Coast, Kim Petersen suggests that the real grounds for concern 
lie elsewhere -- such as the fence he saw at a West African port a few 
months ago.

The newly built fence was a source of pride to the port's officials, who 
wanted to show that they were protecting their facility against any 
terrorists seeking to sneak a bomb aboard a U.S.-bound container. But it 
was a 5 1/2 -foot-tall chain-link fence -- hardly sufficient for the 
task, said Petersen, president of SeaSecure, a maritime security firm in 
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The tale illustrates a point emphasized by many people familiar with 
security operations at U.S. ports: Among all the reasons to fret about 
vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks, the nationality of the companies 
managing the terminals is one of the least worrisome.

"There are many, many problems that we face in maritime security -- and 
they're not the United Arab Emirates," Petersen said, referring to the 
Persian Gulf nation of which Dubai is a part.

Nonetheless, politicians from both parties continue to pelt the Bush 
administration with criticism for its decision to allow Dubai Ports 
World, a fast-growing business owed by the Dubai government, to buy 
Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., a British maritime firm 
that manages terminals in Baltimore, New Jersey, New Orleans and several 
other major ports. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing 
yesterday, lawmakers acknowledged that the UAE has become an important 
U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf region but repeatedly cited the UAE's role 
in recognizing the Taliban before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 
and the lax supervision of its banking system that allowed some of the 
hijackers to finance their plans.

But such points bypass some crucial questions: What do the companies 
managing U.S. terminals -- most of which are owned by Asian and European 
shipping giants -- do that is so important to protecting against 
terrorist attacks? And how much difference would it make if Dubai Ports 
World joined their ranks?

Administration officials have asserted in recent days that security at 
U.S. ports is the responsibility of the Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and 
Border Protection, with the terminal operators responsible for little 
more than transferring containers from ships to railroad cars and trucks.

That overstates the role government agencies play. "They've been saying 
that customs and the Coast Guard are in charge of security; yes, they're 
in charge, but they're not usually present," said Carl Bentzel, a former 
congressional aide who helped write the 2002 act regulating port security.

The private terminal operators are almost always responsible for 
guarding the area around their facilities, although they must submit 
their security plans to the Coast Guard, which monitors and inspects 
them. In some cases, the companies X-ray incoming containers to see 
whether the contents appear to match the manifest, although customs 
agents are solely responsible for "intrusive" inspections -- that is, 
opening containers and examining the cargo. That procedure is performed 
on about 5 percent of containers entering the United States.

The security personnel employed by the terminal companies vary from port 
to port, but according to several companies, the guards are often 
supplied by local private security firms.

"The lowest-paying jobs on the waterfront are security people," said 
Stephen E. Flynn, a ports expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. 
"But is that a problem for foreign ownership? No. It's a problem for 
everybody."

Shifting ownership from Britain's P&O to Dubai Ports World would not 
affect those arrangements at the terminals in question, company 
officials said. Consider, for example, the situation at the Philadelphia 
port, where Dubai Ports World would obtain 50 percent control over a 
local outfit that runs one terminal out of eight leased from the 
Philadelphia Regional Port Authority.

Robert Palaima, who runs the local company, said yesterday that he hires 
guards from a union that provides security officers and police guards 
under a security plan approved by the Coast Guard, which carried out a 
full-day inspection this week.

Cargo loading and unloading is done by work crews supplied by the 
International Longshoremen's Association, which Palaima described as 
"the most patriotic of unions." And there would be no changes in the 
workforce even if the Dubai Ports World takeover goes through, he said, 
adding: "I am sick and tired of all this uproar. We're patriots and 
nothing will change."

Much more serious, in the view of Petersen and other experts, are gaps 
in security that have nothing to do with the Dubai takeover.

"We've spent barely $700 million in federal grants to U.S. ports for 
security, compared with almost $20 billion for aviation security," 
Petersen said. "And most important, we are doing an abysmal job in 
assisting ports in the developing world in improving security to even 
minimal acceptable standards."

Since 2001, Washington has arranged for customs officials to work in 42 
foreign ports with rights to inspect containers before they head for 
U.S. shores; Dubai was the first in its region. But that covers only 80 
percent of the containers entering the United States.

"If you're an al-Qaeda operative, you're going to send a bomb from a 
developing country where you know those safeguards don't exist," 
Petersen said. "That's the key flaw. We should be investing now in the 
countries that pose a real threat to our national security, with more 
security grants. But many of these ports don't even have adequate 
fencing or lighting."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/23/AR2006022302303.html
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