Senate study finds big gaps in cargo security
The number of high-risk cargo containers inspected before entering the United States is “staggeringly low,” and government efforts to keep terrorists from exploiting the system are riddled with blind spots, according to a study, by a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee.
The report is the latest to raise questions about whether the Bush administration and Congress have done enough to improve security at seaports, border crossings and other transportation hubs.
Most of the concern is focused on the millions of boxcar-size cargo containers that flow into U.S. seaports and across land borders each year, The San Diego Union-Tribune reports. Despite efforts to inspect more of the containers before they reach the United States, only a minuscule number are examined abroad; the system used to identify potentially troublesome cargo is unreliable; and a program that allows shippers to avoid some inspections is not closely monitored, the three-year subcommittee investigation concluded.
“If we think that the terrorists are going to ignore our vulnerabilities and not find the kinks in our supply chain, we are mistaken,” said Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., the panel’s chairman.
Coleman and other lawmakers want the Department of Homeland Security to embrace technology being used at the port of Hong Kong that scans every container passing through two gates there. While the Bush administration has been skeptical of the program, which involves technology developed by San Diego-based Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently traveled to Hong Kong for a demonstration, the newspaper reports.
The Senate study focused on operations at 18 ports and border crossings in the United States and abroad.
According to the report, the Container Security Initiative, which has placed U.S. personnel at 44 international ports, is inspecting a “disturbingly low” number of containers identified as high-risk.
Slightly more than 37 percent of high-risk shipments were examined abroad, the investigators found. They attributed the low rate to “mission fatigue,” given the large number of containers; lack of time and resources; and uncooperative foreign-port operators.