Port Security: A Rush to Judgment over Dubai Ports World?

A look at the current federal port security initiatives governing the proposed acquisition

Scott R. Gane, CPP, is the Regional Vice President of Initial Security's East Central Region, where he has worked on a number of port security programs.

Last week it was announced that Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates would be acquiring and managing a total of six U.S. ports located in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Florida, Texas & Louisiana. Is Dubai World Ports' takeover of some terminal operations within six U.S. ports -- where they are mandated to comply with Maritime Transportation Security Act (MARSEC), the Container Security Initiative (CSI) as well as other U.S. Customs and Coast Guard programs -- a national security concern?

When the $6.8 billion deal was announced, it appeared anyone with the power to speak and access to a media outlet proclaimed that our national security was breached. The general presumption was that since they didn't know about the deal, and because the research and due diligence was conducted by the Cabinet Committee, we were all at risk.

With over 9 million containers shipped to the U.S. annually and less than 10 percent completely inspected, there are definitely security concerns. However, by knowing more about the programs in place, it is possible to add thoughtful, balanced exchange to this heated and emotional dialogue.

As a private security contractor, I consult, develop and implement government initiatives and laws regarding the security in the several ports across the U.S. Based on my experiences and knowledge of port security, the following are the government port security initiatives in place and the facts of the sale that have to be considered before anyone rushes to judgment:

First, Dubai Ports World is acquiring the operating and management rights of individual terminals within these ports and will not be running the entire port. Secondly, the government uses a layered approach to securing the ports. Many of these programs are still considered to be in their infancy and are a "work in progress." Security professionals need to consider this fact and use a level headed common sense approach to addressing the requirements of these programs knowing that as refinements occur the security program you designed to address these programs will have to be modified.

Some of the programs or laws that are currently used to protect our ports, that oversee Dubai Ports Worlds, include:

- Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002 (MARSEC) Developed as a result of 9/11, this law requires that every regulated U.S. port facility establish and implement a comprehensive security plan that outlines procedures for controlling access to the facility, verifying credentials of port workers, inspecting cargo for tampering, designating security responsibilities, training and reporting of all breaches of security or suspicious activity. The plan also requires that as the national threat level is increased, so do the security measures for the port facility. The U.S. Coast Guard inspects and verifies compliance with this law. This federally regulated program is still in its developing and refining stages. Inspection techniques used by the U.S.C.G. vary from port to port. Those variations in inspection techniques are making it difficult for companies who are in multiple ports and who are trying to provide consistency to their MARSEC security plans and programs.

- Container Security Initiative (CSI) U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel work with customs services from other countries to examine high-risk maritime containerized cargo at foreign seaports before they are loaded on board vessels destined for the U.S. This is a good program - in theory - but as with C-TPAT (below) it appears to be somewhat under funded and understaffed to adequately implement the program. Inspections are being conducted, but not at the optimal frequency projected.

- Customs - Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) C-TPAT is a U.S. Customs-sponsored initiative that partners with companies to improve baseline security standards for supply chain and container security. This program not only checks the company shipping the goods, but also the companies that provided them with any services. While this good program it is not without its problems. There is a rather exhaustive submission process that could take months to complete.

Once submitted/applied, U.S. Customs must verify the accuracy of the submission before the company can become a partner. U.S. Customs, by their own admission is very far behind in verifications (of over 5,500 submissions, only around 1100 verifications have been completed to date). Companies are frustrated with the delays but wait patiently because the U.S. Customs verification of their program ensures their company is placed in a "reduced" (container) inspection frequency, allowing them to get merchandise into production or on the shelves faster than the competition.

Nobody disputes that port security has improved since 2001. Importers are required to provide information on incoming shipments at least 24 hours before arrival; international agreements have been secured to increase inspection of US-bound goods on foreign soil and radiation detectors and X-ray machines have been introduced to most of our large ports.

Despite the improvement, only a small fraction of the 9 million containers that arrive in the U.S. each year are inspected. There are problems also with false alarms triggered by naturally occurring radiation, while more sinister material sheathed in lead could go unnoticed. By expediting and strengthening the administrative and management process with the programs we have in place, and encouraging the Department of Homeland Security to make port security a top priority, we will be thinking reasonably and strategically while acting globally.

About the Author: Scott R. Gane, CPP, is the Regional Vice President of Initial Security's East Central Region. Initial Security, www.initialsecurity.com, a leader in the North American physical security sector, provides security services through its network of over 60 U.S. and Canadian branch offices. At Initial Security, Gane has worked on a number of port security programs, and prior to his work with Initial Security, he held top-level security positions in the manufacturing and nuclear energy sectors. He can be reached at sgane@initialsecurity.com.

It's not DP World the company that is necessarily the concern. It is an enormous corporate entity, and consequently multiple echelons are subject to influence, corruption and coercion.

Subject to influence, corruption, and coercion by whom, you may ask? See below:

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An Unlikely Criminal Crossroads

12/5/05

"From Egypt to Afghanistan, when terrorists and gangsters need a place to meet, to relax, maybe to invest, they head to Dubai, a bustling city-state on the Persian Gulf. The Middle East's unquestioned financial capital, Dubai is the showcase of the United Arab Emirates, an oil-rich federation of sheikdoms. Forty years ago, Dubai was a backwater; today, it hosts dozens of banks and one of the world's busiest ports; its free-trade zones are crammed with thousands of companies. Construction is everywhere--skyscrapers, malls, hotels, and, soon, the world's tallest building."

"But Dubai also serves as the region's criminal crossroads, a hub for smuggling, money laundering, and underground banking. There are Russian and Indian mobsters, Iranian arms traffickers, and Arab jihadists. Funds for the 9/11 hijackers and African embassy bombers were transferred through the city. It was the heart of Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan's black market in nuclear technology and other proliferation cases."

"Half of all applications to buy U.S. military equipment from Dubai are from bogus front companies, officials say. "Iran," adds one U.S. official, "is building a bomb through Dubai." Last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents thwarted the shipment of 3,000 U.S. military night-vision goggles by an Iranian pair based in Dubai. Moving goods undetected is not hard. Dhows--rickety wooden boats that have plowed the Arabian Sea for centuries--move along the city center, uninspected, down the aptly named Smuggler's Creek."

"U.A.E. rulers have taken terrorism seriously since 9/11, but Washington has a half-dozen extradition requests that they refuse to honor. The list includes people accused of rape, murder, and arms trafficking, and the last fugitive of the BCCI banking scandal. The country has put money laundering controls on the books but has made few cases. Interior Minister Sheik Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan told U.S. News the U.A.E. has made great strides in cracking down, but he insists that the real problems lie elsewhere. "We are a neutral country, like Switzerland," he says. "Give us the evidence, and we will do something about it. Don't blame others." Not everyone agrees. "All roads lead to Dubai," says former treasury agent John Cassara, author of Hide and Seek, a forthcoming book on terrorism finance. Cassara tried explaining U.S. concerns about Dubai to a local businessman but got only a puzzled look: "Mr. John, money laundering? But that's what we do."

-David E. Kaplan

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/051205/5terror.b1.htm

Do I have to keep clarifying? Think it through. It doesn't have to be Sheik Yerbouti who guides something dangerous into the US. It could be anyone along the chain of command. Most suicide bombers come from middle-class or even well-to-do Muslim families.

I don't think that DPW is a terrorist organization looking to kill the golden goose. But, that doesn't mean that there isn't someone in power who is sympathetic to the Islamofascists who would shepherd potentially disasterous terrorist tools through the process. That is my concern.

Here's the scenario:

- Dubai Minister of Commerce Sheik A puts his brother, Sheik B, in charge of DPW.

- Sheik B is sympathetic to the Wahabists.

- He in turn appoints Mohammed al-Camelbutt to oversee NYC port operations and human resources.

- Mohammed hires several middle managers with questionable ties to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, etc.

Of course, it can't happen here.

Of course not. An example might help:

The CSVR regime (which is modeled on, and supplements the CIS program) will necessarily involve operator cooperation, reporting, content inspection, and seal and re-seal responsibilities. As described:

1. Obligation To Seal: The party that physically performs the stuffing of the container is responsible for sealing the container immediately upon the conclusion of a secure stuffing process. Each seal has a unique number, which must be provided to the carrier by the shipper.
2. Seal Standards: All seals should meet the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard for high security seals. The government should establish a specific date by which all containerized shipments must be affixed with such seals by the party that physically performs the stuffing of the container.
3. Recording Seal Changes: When persons having custody of a container, including U.S., state and local government officials, break the seal, they must immediately affix a new seal meeting the ISO standard, and provide the carrier (e.g., trucker, railroad, ocean carrier) or terminal operator in possession of the container with written or electronic confirmation of the event. The carrier or terminal operator must record the new seal number on the relevant shipping documents.
4. Modal Changes: Ideally, at each modal interchange in custody, the party receiving the container (e.g., trucker, railroad) must verify and record4 the seal, its number and its condition upon its receipt. If there is a seal discrepancy or anomaly, the receiving party shall inform the shipper, the party tendering the container, and the party to whom it delivers the container of such discrepancy or anomaly, and shall note it on the shipping documents.

As a further example of operator involvement in security, TWIC is a uniform personal credential procedure, and will vet the identity and background of individuals with access to cargo and to secure areas of a marine cargo handling facility. It is to be implemented by the operator pursuant to explicit operator duties under the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002. The duties under the 2002 Act include requirements that marine cargo handling facility operators submit facility security plans designating "secure" areas of the facility for control of access by vessels, vehicles and individuals.

These procedures (PIP, CIS, CSVR, TWIC) are designed with the intention of operator participation, and include essential site security procedures and mandates directly imposed on the operator. And the role of the operator in properly vetted personnel at domestic facilities, secure rail and land connections with terminals, container content verifications, etc. cannot, in my view, be lightly dismissed.

It is always good to discuss security.

However, most terminal companies are owned by governments, because they come out of publicly operated ports.

Of course, ports are owned and run by governments still, even in our country. Our country has mostly gotten out of terminal operations, forming U.S. companies that were then bought by other companies. But Israel has public ownership of terminal companies, as do most other states.

I don't "approve" of public ownership of companies, but it doesn't bother me in many cases. Our country, while not "owning" companies, implements control over companies by laws and collects the cut of the profits by taxes. Many companies have to get approval from government before taking actions.

Other countries simply own the companies, while still paying out to "investors" who invest through debt rather than stock.

indeed.

the danger here is not that the Emir walks into a DPW board of directors meeting and asks "how are we getting the nerve gas shipped". the danger is that a conduit develops, the company is infiltrated by "normal looking" jihadi sympathizers in DPW management on the UAE side, perhaps they work to hire a similarly sympathetic US stateside subcontractor for some element of port operations on the american side, and so it goes.

what happened in the Egypt Air case? Exactly that - they had no protocol to screen pilots (at least not a good one), the US apparently did not subject them to such rigors, so some jihadi worked his way into the company, became a pilot, and when the time was right - crashed his plane load of people into the Atlantic ocean.

Not really full circle. You didn't ask for the "odds", you said you needed PROOF. You asked for a certainty, and said without certainty you would oppose the deal. I was merely saying there are no certainties.

Given that terrorists hate our way of life, hate capitalism, and hate the free shipment of goods between countries, especially decadant western goods being shipped into muslim countries, I'm thinking that P&O and DP World are equally likely to be TARGETTED by terrorists, rather than being places where terrorists will feel comfortable.

If we were randomly sampling people, and then asking which groups were more likely to have terrorists, the answer would clearly be the one with the most muslims.

But when asking what company could more easily be infiltrated by terrorists, the answer is both. Because it's not random, and while it would be easier for terrorists to find muslims to join their cause than non-muslims, I have no doubt that there are enough white americans who would sympathise with terrorists to make the question moot.

The issue is what happens to the employment and operation at the U.S. terminals. According to sunday's WPost, one of the agreements was that DP World would use the existing U.S. companies and employees to run the U.S. ports.

Since the manifests of shipments are already controlled by the foreign operators in the foreign ports where the shipments originate (including DP World) there is no additional security risk as regards falsified manifests -- unless you are afraid that they will ship weapons OUT OF our country using the ports.

Pre 9/11, I don't know if anybody was paying much attention to pilots -- the U.S. flying schools were TRAINING MUSLIM TERRORISTS TO FLY AIRPLANES.

So even accepting your opinion that the pilot was acting out of jihad, rather than simply wanting to commit suicide, it seems quite removed from the question of security related to DP World taking over P&O company.

I would also say that the person put in charge of flying an airplane is a higher security threat than the company that owns the company that owns the U.S. subsidiaries that lease terminals in the Ports owned by, and secured by, the U.S. and state and local govenrments.

We probably don't screen the pilots of the foreign-owned container ships that are sailing into our ports either -- and I haven't seen any of the opponents of the deal screaming that all ships entering our ports should be owned by U.S. companies, and certainly NOT by foreign govermnents.

??Huh???

You quoted from a source which stated the "sensitivity" of shipping manifests was not as much of an issue as the records maintained by foreign telecommunications companies which have U.S. customers. I quote the relevant section:

Foreign communications companies with American customers are commonly required to store business records in the United States. A senior U.S. official said the Bush administration considers shipping manifests less sensitive. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the confidential nature of the agreement."

You then questioned the intelligence of treating shipping manifests less securely:

Shipping manifests are said to be "less sensitive". Less sensitive than what? And if they have suddenly become "less sensitive," what's the point of the customs CIS program and the proposed CVSR program?

I took the opportunity therefore to explain to you what was meant by "sensitivity", why it is that telecomunications companies are routinely required to keep records IN THE U.S. for their U.S. customers, and why the administration was completely correct to assert that shipping manifests did not raise those same privacy concerns. The point being that "sensitivity" in this case applied NOT to security issues, but rather to PRIVACY issues.

The comparison of a shipping company to a telecommunications company was dubious at best for the opponents quoted in the article, but I wanted to stick to simply the explanation for the records retention differences.

I hope this has cleared up the confusion, and explains to you why the administration was correct on that particular point -- U.S. citizen telecommunications personal information is more "sensitive" than overseas shipping manifests.

Well heck. I apologize for making you write that. It was my fault in the inartful way I posed the question in the original post.

My intention was to question the validity of the comparison between communications company records and shipping manifests. And the very badly phrased question was intended to mean "less sensitive than what else in the shipping industry."

It seems to me apples and oranges. In shipping, manifests are rather critical records in the tracing and verification of cargo and container contents. To dispose of the need to maintain them domestically on the basis of a comparison to the sensitivity of records in an unrelated business seems spurious.

Again, sorry. The fingers were moving faster than the brain.

I don't "approve" of public ownership of companies, but it doesn't bother me in many cases.

I presume by "public ownership" you mean governmental ownership in this sentence. Well that is the question isn't it? How many Americans are troubled by merging the roles and functions of governments and business as reflected by this deal? That is the discussion we need to have. What are the consequences of legitimizing this merger of business and government to our civil and economic freedoms? As citizens in a supposedly self-governing republic we should not allow ourselves to be herded into accepting the overturning of the principles of our economic system through slight of hand deception or simply by default.

Some Americans, like you, will not be troubled by this drift toward merging these roles but many more, I suspect, will see it as a weakening and betrayal of our free market principles. We need to get these issues on the table and have the debate.

I think I'm troubled but in a different fashion. I would fight my government trying to take over ANY business. And I see my government doing so, not by claiming ownership, but through regulations which allow government to tell companies how to do their jobs.

But I don't extend that to wanting to have our government use other country's public ownership of firms as an absolute disqualifier to that company winning contracts or doing business with us.

If our government was trying to FORCE government ownership as a condition of running terminals, I'd be really upset. Well, in fact that is the thrust of the democrats in this fight -- they are hoping to ride the sentiment against "foreign ownership" along with the sad fact that there isn't a major private U.S. player to have government "take over" the ports so the democrat's union buddies don't have to worry about bargaining their next contract with companies that dislike them.

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