U.S. Deploys Customs Inspectors in Greece

U.S. inspectors were deployed yesterday to the Greek port of Piraeus as part of a U.S. effort to screen cargo containers heading to the United States for potential terrorist threats (see GSN, June 25).

The U.S. customs inspectors were deployed at Piraeus through the Container Security Initiative, which Greece joined last month. Under the initiative, U.S. inspectors will target containers that raise terrorism concerns; Greek customs officials will then inspect those containers, according to the U.S. Homeland Security Department.

With Piraeus’s participation in the security effort, U.S. inspectors are now stationed at the world’s 20 largest seaports — meeting a goal set when the initiative was launched in 2002, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert Bonner said.

“But we are not stopping there. We plan to expand the CSI network even farther,” he said in a prepared statement (U.S. State Department release, July 27).

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