25 May 2005

US Effort to Secure Foreign Ports is Faulted

The following article is excerpted from the 24 May 2005 edition of “The New York Times”.

… Soon after the September 2001 terrorist attacks, [US] Customs demanded that 24 hours before a sea shipment leaves a foreign country, carriers must electronically deliver details on any cargo headed to the United States or the shipment can automatically be blocked. A special computerized targeting center in the United States screens all these reports, looking for any anomalies that might provide a hint that a container holds dangerous goods. That could include a supplier listed for the first time or a product shipped through an unusual route.

Until last month, importers enrolled in … Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism [C-TPAT] - were automatically designated as a lower risk. Containers shipped by them are inspected once every 306 times, instead of once every 47 times, Customs officials said, permitting faster movement of goods to warehouses owned by Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowe's and other companies.

[CBP officials] acknowledged that so many businesses enrolled that the agency granted thousands of the preferential security clearances without determining whether the companies had improved security measures. "Trust, don't verify," is the slogan some critics have given to the program.

About 9,000 applications from importers have been submitted so far. But of the 5,000 that have been accepted, Customs officials have only verified that 597 companies were taking the required measures….

"It is very troubling to me," said Senator Susan M. Collins, a Maine Republican who is chairwoman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. "If in fact it is a hollow program, then oddly enough that increases our vulnerability."

Late last month, after the Government Accountability Office and members of Congress raised questions about the practice, Customs retracted some of the preferred treatment for more than 4,000 importers until verification efforts are complete. Customs is also moving quickly to hire more auditors, going from a staff of 40 last year to about 100, with plans to add more soon.

The foreign ports program, has less severe but still troubling weaknesses…. Ports enrolled in the program must agree to set up scanning equipment that can look inside containers to see whether any suspicious items might be hidden in loads that the targeting center deems "high risk." In return, cargo from those ports are moved more quickly once they land in the United States.

Customs sends four of its own inspectors to the overseas ports to help supervise the handling of cargo, a tiny number given the size of these giant ports, including those in Tokyo, Rotterdam or Hong Kong. But as the program has started up, it at times failed to inspect "high risk" containers before they were loaded and sailing toward the United States….

Sometimes, that was because information provided by foreign customs officials resolved suspicions about a possible threat. But in many other cases, Customs officials discovered that the containers they wanted to inspect were already gone. In other cases, counterparts from the host nations declined to conduct a requested inspection….

Since late 2002, when the program started at the first major overseas port, 40,628 containers headed for the United States from participating ports were deemed high risk. About 10 percent did not get inspected before they left, Customs officials said.

The failure to inspect "high risk" containers is only one of the weaknesses identified by auditors and Congressional investigators.

The requirements for screening equipment and the training of foreign customs officers who use it are not clear enough, Congressional investigators said. The Energy Department, which has been moving to put radiation detection equipment at the world's largest ports, has been too slow to install the equipment, completing work at only two ports by the end of the last fiscal year, government auditors said.

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