Ports Still No. 1 U.S. Security Problem, Rudman Says

By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Former Senator Warren Rudman, a co-author of a prescient pre-Sept. 11 report on U.S. domestic security vulnerabilities, called this week for unlimited spending on port radiation detection efforts (See GSN, Nov. 27).

The former New Hampshire Republican lawmaker’s declaration comes amid a yearlong congressional debate over the efficacy of planned next-generation detectors advocated by the Homeland Security Department.  Some of the criticism has focused on the cost of the new Advanced Spectroscopic Portal monitors, which are significantly more expensive than devices now in operation at U.S. seaports.

Rudman, though, said cost should not be a factor when addressing the “No. 1 unsolved problem” in protecting the United States against terrorism — port security, particularly vulnerabilities related to a smuggled nuclear device.

The man who helped prepare the January 2001 “Hart-Rudman” report warned of the devastating consequences of an improvised nuclear device making it across U.S. borders. 

“I worry about a nuclear device coming in a sealed container in the port of Miami or the port of New York or the port of L.A., coming in with the seal never broken, never inspected, put on the back of a truck, and off it goes to Denver,” he said Monday during a roundtable discussion with National Journal Group reporters.

Rudman said the United States has completed just 20 percent of the port security work he would like to see done.  Rudman provided no suggestions for future security enhancement beyond more funding.

He said he would spend “unlimited” amounts of money on port security, even if it meant drawing funds away from the Transportation Security Administration, the federal agency that handles airport security.  “It’s a huge problem,” he said.

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, much legislative attention has been paid to the threat of a nuclear weapon or nuclear material arriving at a U.S. port inside an anonymous metal freight container.  By the end of this year nearly all sea cargo unloaded at “major” U.S. seaports is set to be scanned for radiation, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told lawmakers in September

Between 2003 and 2006, Rudman served on the board of directors of the Raytheon Co., the firm that produces the ASP monitors and could get a chunk of the $1.2 billion that Homeland Security wants to spend on the technology in the coming years.

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