Author: James Brush

Ok, this will probably be it for port security posts. I’ve never done a series like this before and it takes more time than I have, at least for now. It sure is nice, though, when your school district gets access to a news database and tells all the teachers to go “research stuff to test it out and see what you think.” For those of us who enjoy “researching stuff” it’s a nice way to be expected to spend some conference periods. So here we go, looking beyond the dangers posed by container ships…

The danger of a container ship bearing a bomb into a US port is frightening to imagine, but another scenario is just as scary and more audacious.

Pirates (or terrorists) can and do hijack ships and then repaint and reflag them at sea, thus creating what is known as a phantom ship. Phantom ships are aided by the phenomenon in the shipping industry known as flags of convenience that allows ship owners to avoid taxes, labor laws, safety and environmental regulation, and any number of other ‘inconveniences’ that can slow a ship down. William Langewiesche describes this in The Outlaw Sea:

No one pretends that a ship comes from the home port painted on its stern, or that it has ever been anywhere near. Panama is the largest maritime nation on earth, followed by bloody Liberia, which hardly exists. No coastline is required either. There are ships that hail from La Paz, in landlocked Bolivia. There are ships that hail from the Mongolian desert. Moreover, the registries themselves are rarely based in the countries whose names they carry: Panama is considered to be an old-fashioned “flag” because its consulates handle the paperwork and collect the registration fees, but “Liberia” is run by a company in Virginia, “Cambodia” by another in South Korea, and the proud and independent “Bahamas” by a group in the City of London.

All of this makes determining exactly who owns any ship a major investigative task and the seeming ease with which flags of convenience can be acquired would make it simple for a phantom ship to pose as legit. The article “Terrorism Goes to Sea” (Foreign Affairs, Nov/Dec 04) discusses an “al Queda Navy” made up of phantom ships:

Intelligence agencies estimate that al Qaeda and its affiliates now own dozens of phantom ships-hijacked vessels that have been repainted and renamed and operate under false documentation, manned by crews with fake passports and forged competency certificates. Security experts have long warned that terrorists might try to ram a ship loaded with explosive cargo, perhaps even a weapon of mass destruction, into a major port or terminal.

In a previous post, I referenced a JINSA article that described an incident in which so-called pirates hijacked a ship in the Straits of Malacca, but instead of stealing anything simply practiced steering the ship for about an hour. This sounds a lot like the preparations made by terrorists who were interested in learning to fly airplanes but not in how to land them. You don’t need to land a plane or dock a ship if your intent is to crash it.

Between flags of convenience, phantom ships and the fact that terrorists have clearly been practicing steering large ships, I can’t help but wonder if our enemies might be thinking bigger than just slipping an explosive container aboard a cargo ship bound for a US port. Let’s remember, these people tend to think big. Do we have the resources in place to stop such an attack? We knew Hurricane Katrina was coming days in advance and we knew where it was going to hit and yet, we weren’t ready. A ship full of explosives or hazardous cargo crashing and igniting in the Houston Ship Channel with its refineries and chemical plants would make Katrina look like a rainy day at the park. Imagine the Texas City Disaster of 1947, only engineered for maximum effect including the release of toxins or radioactive substances.

Increasing funding for the US Coast Guard will not necessarily prevent such an attack from occuring, but it would decrease the likelihood. Spending that money to protect not just our ports but the cities in which they’re based would be well-worth the expense.

A few years ago, while visiting family in East Texas a few miles from one of the biggest concentrations of chemical plants in the world, I read a Texas Monthly article called “Attack Here” (subscription required) by SC Gwynne that’s worth looking at because it lays out exactly what could happen if a carefully placed bomb were set off in the Houston Ship Channel. The story begins with this question:

Along the fifty-mile Houston Ship Channel, there are more explosive materials, toxic gases, and deadly petrochemicals than anywhere else in the country—which is why most security experts agree that it’s one of America’s top targets. So what’s the worst that could happen if terrorists were to strike?

Gwynne then goes on to describe in terrifying detail what that ‘worst’ could be, so while exploring the port security issue, I decided to see what’s being done to prevent such an attack.

According to an article in the Denver Post (“NORTHCOM & NORAD: Eyes on the Future. Anti-terror fight takes to the seas.” Feb 12 06), the US military is taking an expanded role in tracking the movements of container ships on the world’s oceans.

Of course we’re not just dealing with potential bombs, but also a clever way to bring terrorists into the country. The article mentions one particular stowaway who was most likely not just trying to find a better life:

In October 2001, Italian police seized a Canada- bound ship from Egypt at an Italian port. Aboard, they found an Egyptian man hiding in a cargo container equipped with a bed, toilet, cell and satellite telephones, Canadian passports, airplane tickets and an airline mechanic’s certificate valid for airports in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Italian authorities released the Egyptian on bail, then he disappeared.

The article goes on to say that last year US naval forces boarded 2000 ships on their way into US ports.

This is of course a necessary step in protecting our ports from container ships bearing dangerous cargo, be it bombs or terrorists. But according to an article in the Newark Star-Ledger (“On waterfront, so many crates and, say critics, so many gaps” Feb 23 06) there are still many problems stemming from the huge number of containers coming into the US (6000 per day in NY & NJ alone):

Though federal security officials have set up a chain of checks over incoming cargo and ships, criticism abounds that far too many gaps remain for terrorists to exploit on the long routes from overseas manufacturers to foreign ports and then to U.S. docks.

The Government Accountability Office, a watchdog arm of Congress, concluded in an April 2005 report, “An effective port security environment may be many years away.”

Securing ports is a huge task that requires the full engagement of the federal government. At this point, that engagement seems to be lacking:

One of the chief complaints has been a lack of funding. Critics note that the federal grant money earmarked for safeguarding the nation’s ports typically totals in the hundreds of millions of dollars each year, while aviation security gets billions in grants and a far higher profile.

“The whole system needs a lot more attention and investment than we’ve made to date,” said Stephen Flynn, author of “America the Vulnerable” and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank.

Aviation security is important and probably a lot sexier, but the potential cost to human life and the damage that can be inflicted on our cities, our infrastructure, and the environment by a container carrying a bomb or WMD is frightening to consider. Are we doing all we can and is the Coast Guard getting all it needs to prevent this from happening? I’m skeptical.

(Thanks to the bloggers who’ve linked to my Coast Guard post including: All Things Beautiful, The Daily Background, and The Washington Post’s The Debate.)