NYT: U.S. Effort to Secure Foreign Ports Is Faulted

[DeepModem Mom]

U.S. Effort to Secure Foreign Ports Is Faulted
By ERIC LIPTON
Published: May 25, 2005


WASHINGTON, May 24 - The Department of Homeland Security's effort to extend its antiterrorism campaign overseas by enlisting help from importers and foreign ports has been so flawed that the program may have made it easier at times to smuggle unconventional weapons into the United States, Congressional officials say.

Homeland Security has reduced inspections in the United States of cargo coming from 36 foreign ports and 5,000 importers that were certified under its antiterrorism initiatives. But the department has failed to confirm whether most of those importers have tightened security or whether thousands of high-risk containers headed to the United States were inspected at ports overseas, agency records show.

"We have folks here who have the right intentions," said Senator Norm Coleman, Republican of Minnesota, chairman of an investigative panel scheduled to hold an oversight hearing on the programs on Thursday. "But rather than making it harder for folks with evil intentions to do harm to this country, we have in place a system that creates the potential for greater vulnerability."

The port and importer programs, which offer incentives to those who sign on to Homeland Security initiatives, are intended to help block threats overseas so they cannot reach American shores, government officials say. But Kristi M. Clemens, assistant commissioner at Customs and Border Protection - the division of Homeland Security that set up these efforts - said the agency realized that the two programs had some problems....

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However, Ms. Clemens rejected the suggestion that the programs' weaknesses had compromised national security. "We are still in a better position with the programs than we were without it," she said. "We are on the right track. Are we perfect? No." Customs officials have long recognized that the nine million ship containers arriving in the United States each year pose a security risk. Robert C. Bonner, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, called the containers "the potential Trojan horse of the 21st century" in a speech in January....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/25/politics/25ports.html?hp&ex=1116993600&en=9a35e49e49486e24&ei=5094&partner=homepage