THE CENTER FOR INTELLIGENCE STUDIES

                                                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                                         6 Feb 2009

To the Senate Pro Tempore,
   And the Speaker of the House
And to the Senate and House Majority Leaders
 

America has one of the longest coastlines in the world. We have 316 blue-water ports and just over 95,000 miles of shoreline - and none of it is properly defended.

According to a study conducted by the U.S. Naval Academy, merchant ships made an estimated 105,000 calls at American ports in the year 2000. Of the approximately 8200 merchant ships that traversed American waters the following year, 5400 were manned by multinational crews and carried multinational cargos. Although no one counted the number of cargo containers these ships delivered from foreign countries, the total may have beeb as high as 6,825,000.  Of these, fewer than 2% were physically inspected before being off-loaded onto U.S. soil. At the very best then, only 136,500 foreign cargo containers were actually opened and looked at. The remaining 6,688,500 were simply waved through customs.

Compounding the problem is the fact that neither the Coast Guard nor the Navy has a reliable means to track foreign ships in American waters. Although the Navy can monitor ships that are emitting electromagnetic radiation – that is, transmitting radio signals or using their radar – ships that “go black” simply vanish. 

Just before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, for example, three foreign-flag cargo ships chartered by an Egyptian national departed Iraqi ports carrying suspicious cargos. British and American warships followed them out to sea; but once they reached the Indian Ocean, they turned off their radars and their radios and disappeared in a heavily trafficked sea-lane – and as of this writing, at least, none of them has ever been seen again. For all practical purposes, they vanished from the face of the earth!

What were these ships carrying? No one knows, but at the time they were believed to be carrying machinery and raw materials for producing weapons of mass destruction.

Where did they go? Again, no one knows – but some intelligence analysts suspect that they are still at sea, functioning as floating anthrax factories.

When will they reappear? No one has any idea. 

These three missing ships illustrate the dilemma we face in terms of port security. For all we know, they have been re-registered and re-flagged in some Third World country, and packed to rafters with anthrax, small pox, or an “improvised nuclear device.” They could sail into New York, Los Angeles, or New Orleans tomorrow morning – and no one would know the difference.

And if that were to happen, the best-case scenario would be identical to the worst-case scenario because the terrorists would have rigged their weapon or weapons of mass destruction to detonate the moment the cargo container carrying them was opened for inspection.

The bottom line is that port security is an illusion. When it comes to weapons of mass destruction, it simply doesn’t matter if Brits, Arabs, or Hottentots manage the docks. Once a ship carrying a weapon of mass destruction reaches the port, it’s too late.

The only way to protect our ports, harbors and populated coastlines is to stop and inspect America-bound ships while they are still at sea. That’s why the Center for Intelligence Studies would like to reintroduce its 2006 proposal for Comprehensive Coastal Control.

This proposal consists of four parts. 
    
Part One includes funding for completing the U.S. Coast Guard’s Vessel Tracking System; coupled with legislation requiring all ships entering American waters to be equipped with an Automatic Transponder System.

Developed by Lockheed-Martin, the Vessel Tracking System has already been successfully deployed at several U.S. ports. The system permits the Coast Guard to remotely monitor the movement of every surface ship within range, and we believe it should be extended to cover our entire coastline. When coupled to a mandatory shipboard Automatic Transponder System, the VTS would permit the Coast Guard to identify and monitor every ship in U.S. territorial waters.

Part Two provides funding for a visionary proposal to establish offshore cargo inspection facilities for all in-bound merchant ships. First proposed by Allied International Development, Inc., these inspection facilities would employ platforms similar to offshore drilling rigs located 25 miles offshore; and feature “sail through” lanes similar in concept to the drive-through lanes at fast food restaurants. Inbound merchant ships would sail into the specified lane for boarding and inspection; and in the event that contraband was either found or suspected, the ships could be seized and their crews interned under existing international law.

According to the company that developed this concept, their feasibility studies demonstrate that a comprehensive inspection of every container upon every ship would add no more than a few hours to the total transit time involved in international shipping; and in the event that a weapon of mass destruction were detonated at an offshore inspection facility, casualties would number in the hundreds rather than the millions.

This is a simple, obvious, and relatively cheap solution to a deadly problem.

Part Three provides funding for a major expansion of the Coast Guard. Since 9-11, the Coast Guard’s mission has expanded exponentially while its budget has barely increased at all; and a majority of its ships and boats are obsolete. According to Coast Guard officials, they need a total of 300 new vessels in the next ten years in order to meet their basic mission requirements, as well as new aircraft, sensors, remote monitor capabilities - including the Vessel Tracking System - and shore based equipment for the Automated Responder System.

Part Four simplifies the existing process for establishing subsidiary corporations; and would require foreign firms purchasing or leasing sensitive facilities in the United States to make their purchase or lease through an American subsidiary controlled by an American board of directors. As a matter of principle, we believe that the purchase or lease of sensitive facilities in the United States should be limited to American-based firms; and I think that most Americans would agree with that.

As stated above, the concept of port security is an illusion in a world of weapons of mass destruction. Once a weapon of mass destruction enters a port, it won’t matter who manages the docks or the warehouses. An improvised nuclear device detonated in New York’s harbor would kill an estimated 2,000,000 civilians; and a biological weapon could conceivably kill even more.  

For these reasons, the Center for Intelligence Studies calls upon the Congress of the United States to adopt our Comprehensive Coastal Control proposal, and pass it into law with all deliberate speed.

Please be assured that the Center for Intelligence Studies stands ready to assist interested Members of the House or Senate with any aspect of this proposal. 

 
                                                                      Very Truely Yours, 
 
                                                                       Charles S. Viar
                                                                       Chairman
 
 


A Proposal to Support American Workers and Manufacturers
 
                                                                                                                                             1 January 2009

To the Senate Pro Tempore,
   And the Speaker of the House
And to the Senate and House Majority Leaders
 

In response to both the scandal of tainted, shoddy and dangerous goods imported from the People's Republic of China and the ongoing hemorrhage of American industrial production and jobs to low-
wage Third World nations, the Center for Intelligence Studies would like to reintroduce its proposed legislation to require country of origin labels on all products sold in the United States and its territories so that consumers may know where the goods they are purchasing are were produced. 

This could be accomplished easily and cheaply by requiring the flag of the country of origin to be prominently displayed on the box, package, or wrapping of all products sold in the United States.

Country of origin flags would assist American consumers in at least three ways. First, they would enable consumers to avoid products produced in problem countries like the People's Republic of China, thereby diminishing the risk of injury, illness, or death. Second, country of origin flags would make it possible for consumers to avoid purchasing goods from reprehensible regimes, and therefore indirectly subsidizing them.  And third, it would permit the consumer to deliberately and self-consciously "buy American" to support American businesses and workers.

With regard to this third point, I can assure you that many and perhaps most Americans would gladly pay a bit more in order to keep American businesses and jobs in the United States.
 
We also believe that this would provide some measure of support for the national security, as America's security depends heavily upon a strong and vibrant economy.

For all these reasons, we call upon your respective Houses to promptly pass country of origin labeling this Session.
 
                                                                           Very Truly Yours,
 
                                                                           Charles S. Viar
                                                                           Chairman 
 


The interested public may support this plan by contacting their Representative through the U.S. House of Representatives' web site by clicking on this link.

And their Senators through the U.S. Senate's web site by clicking on this link.