Panel suggests safeguards for vulnerable US ports

A port security task force recommended Monday that United States should adopt mandatory security standards to guard against a terrorist attack on its vulnerable ports. It also suggested that a national director of port and cargo security should be appointed to coordinate the federal agencies that manage the nation's 361 seaports.

According to the task force’s 22-page report a per-container port-user fee should be paid by shippers, that would be divided among the U.S. ports so they could install more security.

Agency Chairman Anthony Coscia said that since the 9/11 attacks the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has spent more than $85 million on security actions and the federal government has contributed $21.7 million. "The federal government must realize the vulnerabilities that our ports face and work with us to identify new ways to reduce risks," he said.

Millions of shipping containers arrive in US ports each year and security officials fear that any of them could be used to conceal weapons such as a nuclear bomb.

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., said Monday, "We must get continually closer to scanning 100 percent of cargo containers. Ports are the gateways to our nation's economy, and therefore securing them is not only a national security objective but also an economic imperative."

Earlier this month the Bush administration announced a $60-million program to scan US-bound cargo for nuclear and radiological material at ports in Britain, Honduras, Oman, Pakistan, Singapore and South Korea.

The port security panel was set up in March amid an upheaval that a company based in the United Arab Emirates could acquire some U.S. port operations. Lawmakers concerns about the US port terminals being run by an Arab Estate company led the company to decide to sell the U.S. assets.

Aviation has received most of the anti-terror attention since the 2001 attacks but the site of the World Trade Center that was destroyed in the attacks was owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The task force admitted that operations would likely be disrupted nationwide with an attack at or through any one port, so it said each port should develop its own recovery plan so it could return to business as soon "as efficiently as possible after a disaster."