{"id":62,"date":"2004-04-04T23:55:06","date_gmt":"2004-04-04T23:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucefinley.com\/counter-terrorism\/jets-cargo-a-threat-to-security\/"},"modified":"2007-11-30T23:59:39","modified_gmt":"2007-11-30T23:59:39","slug":"jets-cargo-a-threat-to-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/counter-terrorism\/jets-cargo-a-threat-to-security\/","title":{"rendered":"Jets’ Cargo a Threat to Security"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Passenger planes still at risk as efforts to fight terror lack funds, technology<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Each month, freight loaders pack some 17 million pounds of<br \/>\nuninspected cargo into the bellies of passenger planes leaving<br \/>\nDenver.<\/p>\n<p>More uninspected commercial cargo – an estimated 2.5 million tons a<br \/>\nyear – moves at airports nationwide. No federal agency monitors the<br \/>\ncargo or who’s sending it. Counterterrorism officials see each<br \/>\npiece as potentially explosive – and call this a major threat to<br \/>\npassenger safety.<\/p>\n<p>Congressional leaders have demanded inspections.<\/p>\n<p>“It is a matter of such critical importance, such an obvious<br \/>\nsecurity gap, we cannot afford not to inspect the cargo that<br \/>\ntravels on every passenger plane,” said U.S. Rep. Jim Turner,<br \/>\nranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on Homeland<br \/>\nSecurity.<\/p>\n<p>But U.S. Transportation Security Administration officials say<br \/>\ninspecting all cargo is unrealistic. They say they don’t have<br \/>\nenough money or big enough machines to scan enough cargo fast<br \/>\nenough without impeding commerce.<\/p>\n<p>The situation illustrates the soft spots in security and heightened<br \/>\nanxiety plaguing the home-front war on terrorism today.<\/p>\n<p>The railway bombings that killed 191 and wounded more than 1,800 on<br \/>\nMarch 11 in Madrid, and testimony at the Sept. 11 commission’s<br \/>\nhearings in Washington, have raised concerns that Americans aren’t<br \/>\nas safe as they should be.<\/p>\n<p>Federal agents with access to classified intelligence say there’s<br \/>\nstill no way to know whether Denver, or any other city, is more or<br \/>\nless vulnerable.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the problem is money. Part is the nature of the threat.<br \/>\nAgents say their job is becoming harder with new vulnerabilities<br \/>\nemerging as the war on terrorism evolves. “It’s difficult to cover<br \/>\nevery potential vulnerability,” said Phillip Reid, FBI agent in<br \/>\ncharge for Colorado and Wyoming. “There obviously are<br \/>\nvulnerabilities out there that we aren’t aware of. … It’s an<br \/>\nendless job.”<\/p>\n<p>Government intelligence suggests that enemies, particularly those<br \/>\ntied to al-Qaeda, “tend to look for the major terrorist attack,<br \/>\nwhere it has major consequences and numerous fatalities,” Reid<br \/>\nsaid. So agents assume the risk in cities is greatest and treat<br \/>\nDenver as a potential target.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0 Bus, rail lines threatened<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>FBI and homeland security chiefs issued bulletins last week warning<br \/>\npolice that terrorists might try to bomb buses and rail lines in<br \/>\nU.S. cities this summer and that terrorists might try to use<br \/>\ncultural, artistic or athletic visas to slip into the country.<\/p>\n<p>For three years, security officials have focused on airports.<\/p>\n<p>The bulletins reflect a desire, after the Madrid attacks, to do<br \/>\nmore. In addition to rail and bus systems, there’s also concern<br \/>\nabout cargo containers that aren’t always fully inspected at<br \/>\nseaports and border crossings. Thousands of these metal containers<br \/>\nsit unattended in rail and truck yards around downtown Denver –<br \/>\npossible vehicles for delivering deadly weapons.<\/p>\n<p>“We’ve got to get to a point where we have a high level of<br \/>\nconfidence,” said John Suthers, the U.S. attorney in Colorado.<\/p>\n<p>The Sept. 11 commission this month is scheduled to look more<br \/>\nclosely into homeland security. Meanwhile, the $40 billion budget<br \/>\nfor the Department of Homeland Security, created last year after<br \/>\nother agencies were consolidated, is not expected to increase<br \/>\ndramatically.<\/p>\n<p>Recent congressional testimony from counterterrorism chiefs<br \/>\nrevealed that a unified terrorist watch list to enable screening<br \/>\nfor terrorists is not complete. The list drawn from multiple<br \/>\nintelligence databases was supposed to be done last year. FBI<br \/>\nleaders said it should be done this summer.<\/p>\n<p>Testimony also revealed that another task is incomplete: a national<br \/>\nthreat and vulnerability assessment to prioritize critical<br \/>\ninfrastructure for protection. Homeland Security spokesman Donald<br \/>\nTighe said that work would be done by December.<\/p>\n<p>Implementing protective measures will be left to “local<br \/>\nleadership,” Tighe added.<\/p>\n<p>There’s the rub. Colorado Department of Public Safety spokeswoman<br \/>\nPatti Micciche said local agencies are requesting equipment and<br \/>\ntraining “far beyond” what Colorado can afford after receiving<br \/>\nabout $50 million in federal homeland security funds last year.<\/p>\n<p>Few on the front lines see security spending as sufficient.<\/p>\n<p>“We get all kinds of information,” said Pat Ahlstrom, the U.S.<br \/>\nTransportation Security Administration director in Denver.<\/p>\n<p>“Does the Madrid thing portend the possibility of that happening<br \/>\nin America? Yes, it does. Do the suicide bombings in other parts of<br \/>\nthe world portend what could happen in America? Yes. Does 9\/11<br \/>\nportend that people who planned that horrible, unthinkable set of<br \/>\nacts, could they or others of their mind-set attempt the same thing<br \/>\nagain, only now trying to defeat what we have in place? The only<br \/>\nanswer is yes.”<\/p>\n<p>Ahlstrom said he’s pushing to increase his force of 750 passenger<br \/>\nscreeners at Denver International Airport – up from 600 to 700<br \/>\nbefore the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks – to about 1,000 until better<br \/>\ntechnology is available. He’s also asking for more inspectors – 13<br \/>\ninstead of the current 10 – to ensure that there aren’t any<br \/>\nlapses.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cargo slipping through<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The matter of cargo moving on passenger planes looms unaddressed –<br \/>\nat DIA and nationwide.<\/p>\n<p>While TSA agents swarm around passengers and their carry-on<br \/>\nbaggage, and check-in baggage is scanned, commercial cargo moves on<br \/>\nconveyor belts and carts toward passenger planes without systematic<br \/>\ninspection. Officials have the authority to conduct random spot<br \/>\nchecks but could not confirm whether any had been done.<\/p>\n<p>DIA statistics show that in January, passenger airlines carried<br \/>\n17,922,194 pounds (8,961 tons) of commercial cargo domestically and<br \/>\ninternationally.<\/p>\n<p>“What is essentially too cumbersome at this point is to check<br \/>\neverything,” said TSA spokesman Mike Fierberg. “We don’t have the<br \/>\nresources. And we don’t have the technology, most important.”<\/p>\n<p>Instead, airlines are supposed to police themselves by allowing<br \/>\nonly “known shippers” to send cargo on passenger planes. TSA<br \/>\nofficials keep no list of known shippers – the airlines are<br \/>\nsupposed to do that – and no audits are done to make sure airlines<br \/>\ncomply, Fierberg said. However, TSA technicians are working on<br \/>\ngiving airlines access to government databases so that they are<br \/>\nable to check out cargo shippers and customers before loading<br \/>\nplanes, he said.<\/p>\n<p>At one point, officials considered issuing licenses to known cargo<br \/>\nshippers, Fierberg said. They decided that would be too<br \/>\ncumbersome.<\/p>\n<p>Current policy “meets the requirements of Congress” that cargo be<br \/>\ninspected, Fierberg said.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., said he is “very concerned about<br \/>\nthe potential risks of unscreened cargo on passenger airlines” and<br \/>\nhas supported efforts to have all cargo screened. “A lot of work<br \/>\nremains to be done,” he said.<\/p>\n<p>Also in the Denver area, hundreds of cargo containers arrive daily<br \/>\nby truck and rail – all supposedly screened by customs agents at<br \/>\nU.S ports and border crossings.<\/p>\n<p>A federal security directive also deploys Denver-based customs<br \/>\nagents in this effort.<\/p>\n<p>The concern, customs agents say, is that terrorists could smuggle<br \/>\nweapons of mass destruction in containers and team with terrorists<br \/>\nalready inside the country to coordinate attacks.<\/p>\n<p>The rail yards are fenced but not impenetrable. Union Pacific<br \/>\nsecurity agent John Cavanaugh said pilfering “goes on.” He also<br \/>\nsaid federal customs agents seldom inspect containers in rail<br \/>\nyards. “My understanding is (that) whatever is inspected, it is<br \/>\ninspected at the port of entry.”<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials were unable to give<br \/>\nstatistics on how many physical inspections are conducted at ports,<br \/>\nborder crossings and in Denver. They are setting up radiation<br \/>\ndetectors and X-ray scanners at seaports and elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>Yet along the U.S.-Mexico border at El Paso, customs agents raise<br \/>\nconcerns. Trains moving from Mexico into the United States pass<br \/>\nthrough X-ray and other scanners but only occasionally are stopped<br \/>\nfor physical inspections, agents said.<\/p>\n<p>“Customs and Border Protection officers are not comfortable with<br \/>\nthe emphasis on facilitation of traffic and trade,” said Kevin<br \/>\nOdenborg, a National Treasury Employees Union representative on the<br \/>\ncustoms force at El Paso. “The security systems are not<br \/>\ninfallible,” he said. Hundreds of trucks and cars deemed low-risk<br \/>\nare routed through fast lanes where they may not be checked, and<br \/>\nstaffing levels aren’t always sufficient, he added.<\/p>\n<p>Spot checks in fast lanes have found illegal drugs, raising the<br \/>\nspecter that dirty bombs or explosives might slip through in trucks<br \/>\nor cars, Odenborg said. “With the emphasis on facilitation in the<br \/>\nvehicle and truck cargo area, inspectors feel they are less able to<br \/>\nuse their observational and interviewing techniques. The fact is,<br \/>\nthat’s how most contraband is caught.”<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cash smuggling a concern<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Another concern is money moving illegally through airports.<\/p>\n<p>Terrorists trained in Afghanistan and Sudan have fanned out into<br \/>\nmore than 30 independent anti-U.S. groups, said Ambassador Heraldo<br \/>\nMunoz, the Chilean diplomat who chairs the United Nations Security<br \/>\nCouncil’s al-Qaeda sanctions committee. And “finding the money”<br \/>\nthat funds attacks is “absolutely fundamental,” Munoz said.<br \/>\nToday, with more banks monitoring transactions, terrorists “are<br \/>\nusing, now, couriers, bags of money,” he said. “For example, we<br \/>\nknow the Bali bombing was financed by about $100,000 and a second<br \/>\namount of about $35,000 brought into Indonesia in suitcases.”<\/p>\n<p>A recent customs spot check at DIA found a London-bound passenger<br \/>\ncarrying $17,000 in cash he had not declared. The man told agents<br \/>\nhe was going on vacation. The legal limit for undeclared cash is<br \/>\n$10,000.<\/p>\n<p>A federal agent relaying that incident on condition of anonymity<br \/>\nsaid there’s no systematic enforcement of financial controls at DIA<br \/>\nand that customs agents need an ink-sniffing dog to conduct that<br \/>\nwork effectively.<\/p>\n<p>Federal supervisors acknowledged those challenges, though they<br \/>\ndeclined to comment on specific cases. Dealing with “an enormous<br \/>\nproblem” of cargo containers and better enforcement of financial<br \/>\ncontrols “are in the scope,” TSA chief Ahlstrom said. “You focus<br \/>\non what you can afford to do at the time and try to develop plans<br \/>\nfor other pieces as you are able to get some resources.”<\/p>\n<p>America must set priorities: “Look at all the holes you have at<br \/>\nonce and then decide how many of those you can afford to deal<br \/>\nwith,” said Page Stoutland, program leader for radiological and<br \/>\nnuclear countermeasures at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,<br \/>\nwhich does homeland security work.<\/p>\n<p>Stoutland supervised recent testing, at Federal Express cargo<br \/>\nfacilities in Denver, of a device placed beneath a cargo conveyor<br \/>\nbelt to detect possible dirty bombs. The device proved effective<br \/>\nand is available at a cost of about $50,000, he said.<\/p>\n<p>“There is no way to predict with high confidence” what terrorists<br \/>\nmight do, he said. But “our security (system) can’t be one where<br \/>\nwe fix one hole and then fix the next because we’ll never get<br \/>\ndone.”<\/p>\n<p>Two weeks ago, customs agents scrambled when they learned that an<br \/>\nuninspected shipping container from Uzbekistan was moving by rail<br \/>\ntoward Denver. It had been targeted overseas for inspection in<br \/>\nHouston. A recipient’s name and address in Denver proved to be<br \/>\nfake. Authorities figured that the manifest describing the<br \/>\ncontainer’s contents – motorcycles – also might be fake.<\/p>\n<p>Inspectors in Houston let the container pass. It arrived in Denver<br \/>\naround March 25 and sat in a Union Pacific freight yard north of<br \/>\ndowntown. Customs agents here, speaking on condition of anonymity,<br \/>\nsaid they sealed it and notified Union Pacific that they wanted to<br \/>\nexamine it.<\/p>\n<p>But for lack of a proper inspection facility in the freight yard,<br \/>\nthe white container sat unattended for seven days. “We couldn’t<br \/>\nshield it from the public. We wanted it moved to an indoor facility<br \/>\nso we could contain it” if dangerous material was inside, one<br \/>\nagent said.<\/p>\n<p>Finally on Thursday, at a contract cargo warehouse in Aurora, a<br \/>\nteam of three customs agents wearing radiation monitors on their<br \/>\nbelts opened the container – and found motorcycles. Old,<br \/>\nbroken-down antique ones, brown and green, with black sidecars.<\/p>\n<p>They were hauling out the bikes for further inspection that night.<\/p>\n<p>“Something that ends up in Denver is always considered low risk”<br \/>\nbecause port inspectors presumably have cleared it, a customs<br \/>\nsupervisor said.<\/p>\n<p>“We had to look to make sure.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Passenger planes still at risk as efforts to fight terror lack funds, technology Each month, freight loaders pack some 17 million pounds of uninspected cargo into the bellies of passenger planes leaving Denver. More uninspected commercial cargo – an estimated 2.5 million tons a year – moves at airports nationwide. No federal agency monitors the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-counter-terrorism","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucefinley.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}