Posted on 03/09/2006 9:10:45 AM PST by Valin
Critics of the plan that would put a United Arab Emirates (UAE) company in charge of operations at six major U.S. ports have cited security as their central concern. Advocates of the deal have most often argued that security will not be effected by Dubai Ports (DP) World management, largely because port security is the province of domestic U.S. agencies.
A third argument has not yet been made by the major factions, and may never be. That argument says that the UAE company's role here might result in better security implementation for the cargo container terminals than would otherwise have been possible.
Two factors explain potentially improved security under DP World management. The first is merely deductive. Given the intense furor already stirred to life in the media, the pressure to assure security could rise to a make-or-break agenda item for the ambitious company which already operates more than 40 terminals around the world.
Even before the media firestorm, a member of the U.S. committee that originally approved the DP World deal said that because the company is Persian Gulf-based it has "a strong incentive to make sure [terrorist threats to U.S. ports] never materialize." If anything, that incentive doubled when critics made a billboard issue of the deal.
More studied reasons for supposing port security in the U.S. could improve under DP World begin with the company's demonstrated ability to significantly grow its business managing shipping hubs while operating within environs associated with terrorism. In the same period that terrorist Web sites have increasingly advised jihadists on different ways of attacking or infiltrating ports and commercial maritime activities, the port of Dubai in UAE has soared from a mid-level operation to one of the busiest ports in the world.
Carved from the Dubai Ports Authority, the company's reputation for technological implementation dates back to its project to automate many of its processes in the 1990s. At that time, Dubai became one of the first ports in the world to implement so-called e-shipping, digitizing most of its planning, scheduling and operations while "building out" a CRM (customer relations management)/Web portal system that was one of the first of its kind used by a port.
According to American e-commerce experts who followed the UAE technology implementation as it has evolved, it was Dubai's willingness to invest in IT that allowed it to offer container shipping and related services at lowered costs for its customers. Last year, a Homeland Security official called the two-terminal Dubai facility "modern and extremely efficient ports."
While the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the implementation of the White House-backed Container Security Initiative (CSI) tested the resilience of port operators both here and abroad, the port of Dubai continued even in that period to grow both in volume and influence in worldwide shipping. In 2004 Dubai made another bold-stroke decision, becoming the first Middle Eastern port (and 35th overall) to agree to the CSI, signing formally last March. CSI gives U.S. Customs personnel a foothold in foreign ports and requires that state-of-the-art security systems such as gamma ray, x-ray and radiological detection systems be implemented for cargo inspection.
Dubai's interest in security has seemingly followed the same upward curve that most critical infrastructure operators have followed. All confront greater threats from terror groups, and particularly from al Qaeda.
The attack on the USS Cole in 2000 made it clear that Osama bin Laden's group was acutely interested in wreaking havoc on maritime targets, if it could. The Cole attack was, in fact, masterminded by an operative whose nickname inside the group was "Prince of the Seas," and who had gathered reconnaissance information on about 150 potential, mostly seaside targets around the world at the time of his arrest.
The port of Dubai itself has not gone unscathed as transnational terror has spread. The oft-cited use of the port by the notorious A.Q. Kahn nuclear weapons black market involved the creation of a bogus computer company in the Emirates that subsequently was able to ship banned materials to Libya. A few other conventional weapons proliferation incidents have been traced back through the port, though such problems are not exclusive to Dubai.
In fact, if DP World's most recent project is any indication, the Dubai company might already have absorbed its lessons and staked a claim in what is fast becoming a "security market." At the recently opened Pusan Newport in South Korea, DP World and tech partner Samsung of Japan worked with the Korean port authority to build a state-of-the-art security port.
Pusan opened for business late last year fashioned around a Samsung-developed central security system in which threats are anticipated and met via a network of monitors including advanced CCTV, lasers, radiological and other sensors, and explosives- and motion-detection fencing of the sort normally found in high-sensitivity military settings.
Samsung often relies on security specialist companies, such as GVI Security Systems of Texas, which increasingly build "intelligent" systems that rely on a portfolio of technologies including "smart cameras" that can send alerts and trigger other defenses, vulnerability analysis and remediation systems, biometrics and identity management devices, and other emerging applications.
Pusan aside, most ports around the world are analog facilities often operated more in accordance with maritime traditions than modern efficiencies. In fact, shipping in general is so under-automated that even an investment in advanced security can exert downward pressure on overall costs — such as that which occurred during a study of container "e-sealing" done in 2003 in Singapore.
Sponsored by the U.S. Trade and Development Agency and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, officials from BearingPoint added radio frequency identification (RFID) chips to container seals for better cargo tracking, and not only achieved a higher level of security but a probable shipping cost reduction of about $220 per container if the port in Thailand and the one in Seattle (used in the study) were fully networked.
The value of automation in tracking cargo from points of origin through the supply chain to the destination has already been accepted conceptually elsewhere too, including the New York/New Jersey "Megaports Project." But projected security enhancements and cost savings related to RFID and other shipping innovations "will remain elusive" unless ports are prepared to more fully automate and network with one another so as to leverage Web services and other supply chain management practices, the Asian study determined.
The driving force for such innovations in hundreds of ports worldwide begins with the broadest international treaties and agreements and works down through national governments to ports and their operators. To all outward appearances, DP World's business model has seemingly been crafted around a parallel acceptance of e-commerce and technological standards, leading to better security such as that at Pusan.
The company's willingness to embrace technology could be the most significant edge it brings. While Bush administration officials and other supporters for the deal continue to insist that DP World is not going to be the security provider for ports in the U.S., security experts often note that the quality of organizational security is ultimately determined not by specialist providers or security officers but by the support (or lack of it) that operations and management interests bring.
To the extent that it can be measured, U.S. commercial port operators have not been all that committed to security. One Coast Guard estimate puts the security shortfall at American ports at about $7 billion overall, and the New York Times has reported that the very terminals DP World would operate here are among the lacking.
Moreover, as noted in the 2003 RFID test and by other technologists, the enterprise security model best suited for large and multifarious undertakings like port operations will likely be less than effective if built into an otherwise under-automated (or porously automated) operational infrastructure.
It requires no facts or metrics to say (with or without hysteria) that an Arab company represents a higher risk than weak technology does, merely because most terrorism is generated in Arab environs to begin with. But to all appearances, DP World's embrace of security innovation as encapsulated at the Pusan Newport in Korea and its own rise to prominence via broad technology investment, might indicate it uniquely understands the risks, in part because it faces them at point-blank range. If so, DP World could become a focal point of improved security at U.S. ports.
Robert M. Green is senior editor for the Washington-based Public Sector Institute.
Yes, The Know-Nothings have really made America safe from....(let's see what was that again?) OH, a foreign company manageing some terminals. I'll sleep much better tonight knowing this won't happen.
NOTE : The following post does not apply to
those FReepers who are
1) Active Duty
2) Those with disabilities
3) Care givers of those with disabilities
4) Those with financial hardships
5) Those who actually support our troops in other ways.
What part of "Don't post to me anymore" don't you understand?
"What part of "Don't post to me anymore" don't you understand?"
Oh I forgot, I thought this was Free Republic
and everyone had a right to post to whomever they wanted.
What posting guidelines are you using?
What forum do you think you are on???
And he was right. But the point is the only reason Congress got hysterical is because citizens demanded it. And those citizens were uninformed beyond the "No A-Rabs controlling our ports" nonsense.
Dubai Ports World may be out of it now but the message that this whole demogogued issue sent will surely come back to bite us in the ass. And the people that demanded this deal not go through will never make the connection because to do so will require a) admitting they were wrong in the first place and b) actually thinking about it rather than simply relying on a kneejerk reaction.
I learned a long time ago you can't talk sense to those who have none. These morons proved it.
Your rudeness in ignoring our request is duly noted.
Besides, it's already posted Here and Here, Here, and Here. And that's just this afternoon's spamming.
How many times do you have to post your remarks, especially to people who have repeatedly asked you not to spam them?
Why are you so opposed to a post about helping Homeland Security?
Promoting Homeland Security is spam?????
As long as I have been here, I can remember seeing people asked you to not post those spam posts to them and you always say, "Why are you so opposed to a post about John Kerry (or fill-in the blank)?"
You are very transparent and disingenuous.
It's very simple; please don't post those to me.
"You are very transparent and disingenuous."
Please: NO profanity,
Well, you just seem determined to have the last word, even if it makes you look foolish, so go ahead and post again to me.
STOP IT!!
JUST STOP IT!!
For Cryin' out Loud...
Crying..
For Christ Sake, would you STOP!!!
I am so sick of this...
For the sake of the Troops...
By God,,
Can't one among you..
See past your selves?
Ms.B
To quote a buddy of mine, "People are idiots!"
Stopped right there, when the facts stopped and the inaccuracies started.
And just where are the media in reporting the India deal?
That was one hell of a job that just provided a little security for the Mideast.
Land Of the Free And the Home Of the Brave ,HA
That's all I have been asking for over a year; stop posting to me. I'm pretty sick of it, too.
No kidding. On another thread, someone posted that he didn't really care whether this was a good deal or not, just that it was a blow against "globalization". When you admittedly don't care whether or not something was a good deal, you've hopped right on the Know-Nothing bandwagon.
What struck me in this whole debate was that our military, which has had extensive contacts with the UAE, and professionals who work in the shipping industry were the two groups who most strongly supported this deal. The people who actually understood this, and weren't just getting third hand information from the blogosphere, supported it. And I have yet to see a single port operations professional oppose this.
Triumph of the proudly ignorant.
this issue is dead. Let's bring up a new one .What are you anti port deal people going to do when you cannot get our ships to port in the UAE. Bin Laden was smarter then I thought, he used people from countries like the saudis and the Uae to destroy any arab trust in the middle east. I can under stand his plan , but to have our own country go against a man who is keeping the us safe to compalin and call him stuipd.I admire President Bush more and more everyday. But your country club rep congress and the radical pro castro , pro communist demo congress can go to where it is very hot.
The message has been sent "Ragheads need not apply."
Osama smiles.
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