The implementation of security measures mandated both nationally and internationally since Sept. 11 lags behind due to
underfunding of homeland security in general and port security in particular. The Coast Guard has put the cost of implementing safety regulations laid out by Congress at $7.5 billion over the next ten years, but in
President Bush's 2005 budget, he proposed spending only $46 million, a substantial reduction from post 9/11 allocations. This means major shortfalls at the local level: North Carolina, for example, has asked for $14
million in federal security grants and received $7 million. Chief of port security Doug Campen said. "It sort of tells you we're halfway where we need to be."
Since Sept. 11, U.S. Congress has allocated about
$11.7 billion on security at the nation's airports, but only $500 million for port security upgrades. The administration's FY 2005 budget includes almost no new funding for increased port security, whereas the
Transportation Security Administration plans to spend $5.3 billion on aviation security, much of which used to be paid for by the private airline industry.
Stephen Flynn, a senior fellow at the Council on
Foreign Relations and a retired U.S. Coast Guard Commander, says the lack of funding for port security is part of a "self-defeating and dangerous division of resources between the U.S. military and homeland security."
Referring to the billions the administration has spent overseas, Flynn points out, "For the cost of two F-22 fighter jets and three days of combat in Iraq...the nation's ports could be secured against terror."
Under pressure from the United States, the U.N.'s International Maritime Organization passed a code after Sept. 11 requiring "all the world's ships and ports to create counterterrorism systems...to help secure America
against an attack." But the code provided few specifics and many foreign ports lack the funds to comply. Associated Press reported last week "that only about 10 percent of world ports" would be in
compliance with the rules by the July 1st deadline. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that industry executives and security consultants worry the new international security rules "don't go far enough and leave
the global shipping system vulnerable to a devastating event that could cripple world trade." Acknowledging the inability of smaller ports in less-developed counties to comply, industry officials also
raised the question of "whether the new code - with its focus on the physical security of ports and ships - will do much to address an even stickier problem: How to ensure that terrorists haven't put a bomb into a
shipping container before it ever enters a shipyard." |
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