U.S. Response:  Congress Approves Port Security Bill

The U.S. Congress yesterday passed a port security bill to increase inspections of cargo entering U.S. port.  The White House said President George W. Bush plans to sign the legislation (see GSN, Sept. 16).

The bill — which the U.S. Senate approved 95-0 and the House of Representatives approved by a voice vote — orders increased inspections of shipping containers, development of comprehensive harbor security plans, limited access to sensitive areas within ports and a maritime intelligence system.

No legislation has been proposed to fund most of the port security bill, which was stalled in Congress for several months by debate over a user-fee that would have funded it.  Officials will now be forced to find billions of dollars to implement the increased security, supporters have said.  The bill does include $90 million for studies on cargo screening technology and a $200 million boost for Coast Guard funding (see GSN, July 31).

“The president is pleased that this bill, which helps protect our nation’s ports and coasts, has passed, and he looks forward to signing the legislation,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said (Reuters/Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 15).

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U.S. Response:  Controversial Provisions Could Delay Senate Homeland Vote

By Brody Mullins and April Fulton

CongressDaily

While senators remain focused on debate over personnel rules for the new homeland security department, that issue is far from the only controversial matter remaining in the bill.  From vaccine liability protections to a delay in an airport baggage-screening deadline, the Republican-drafted bill that passed the House yesterday and heads to the Senate today includes contentious measures quietly written into the bill as the congressional session draws to a close.

Senate leaders, determined to create the homeland security department before the year’s end, are likely to accept most of the provisions.  Still, the new debates could push a final vote on the underlying bill into next week. Governmental Affairs Chairman Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), who wrote the Democrats’ version of the bill, said he is “especially concerned” about the latest Republican bill, because it contains “a number of special-interest provisions that are being sprung on the Senate without prior warning or consideration.  This is really not the time for that.”

“We all ought to be focusing on the terrorist threat, the need to create a department of homeland security to meet that threat, and not on using a vehicle that is moving, probably to passage, to put into it a host of pet personal projects,” Lieberman said.

Chief among the concerns of Lieberman and others are provisions to eliminate or reduce a manufacturer’s product liability, two of which relate to vaccines. According to the new bill, a broad range of items, from drugs to life preservers, could escape liability lawsuits if the head of the homeland security department designated them as “necessary for security purposes.”

One provision in the bill would require liability claims against smallpox vaccine manufacturers to go through the federal tort system. The federal government would pay the damages, and punitive damages would be banned.

The new bill also would limit liabilities for airport screening companies and high-tech firms that develop equipment essential to ensure domestic security.

It would aid the airline industry further by extending aviation war-risk insurance for a year and giving airports another year to install baggage-screening equipment.  It would also allow pilots to carry handguns in airline cockpits.

The latest version of the homeland bill strips several provisions that were top priorities to key members of Congress.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lieberman were enraged to find out that the new bill removes language calling for an independent commission to examine the roots of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Without an investigation by such an independent commission, Daschle said, “we will never fully have an objective evaluation.”

Daschle also said the bill guts congressional oversight over a critical part of the federal government.

The bill does not include $1.2 billion to increase passenger rail and tunnel security, though the funds were in the earlier Senate version.

“We’re very disappointed,” said Senator Thomas Carper (D-Del.), a rail advocate and former member of the Amtrak board of directors.  “Our failure to act to improve security of our rail travel is an Achilles heel in our nation’s efforts to secure our transportation system,” Carper said.

The bill also drops provisions that would have applied labor protections to workers contracting with the homeland security department and a provision that would have safeguarded the public’s ability to use the Freedom of Information Act to find out information about the department.

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Threat Assessment:  U.S. Officials See Signs of Possible Attacks

In the past 10 days, U.S. officials have received a surge of intelligence about likely terrorist attacks on the United States, equaling the level of intelligence received immediately prior to Sept. 11, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Nov. 5).

Warnings issued in October — regarding possible attacks on economic targets — are still in effect, according to Homeland Security Office spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

“There is intelligence, while it is general, that has pointed to and raised concerns about our critical infrastructure,” Johndroe said.

Officials said they do not have enough information to raise the terrorist attack alert level from yellow (see GSN, Sept. 24).  A recently released tape, purported to carry a statement by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, could be a call to action for terrorists, AP reported.

Officials are also looking for signs of potential terrorist attacks on the NATO summit scheduled next week in Prague.  Czech officials have given permission for U.S. aircraft and as many as 250 U.S. military personnel to assist local law enforcement with security at the summit, which U.S. President George W. Bush plans to attend.

Meanwhile, NATO headquarters in Brussels and some European ports have increased their security based on the same intelligence that was available to U.S. authorities (John Lumpkin, Associated Press/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Nov. 13).

U.S. officials last week issued an intelligence report that said three U.S. oil ports had been under terrorist surveillance, the Washington Times reported.

Islamic terrorists have studied facilities in Philadelphia, Texas and Alaska, U.S. intelligence officials said.  The report did not provide details about the terrorists or explain why they were not apprehended, the Times reported.

Johndroe said he was unaware of this specific report, but said the government knows that al-Qaeda is targeting oil or nuclear facilities.

“We wouldn’t have put out a warning or begun working with industry if we weren’t concerned about an al-Qaeda attack on these facilities” (Bill Gertz, Washington Times, Nov. 13).

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U.S. Response I:  Bush, GOP Leaders Prevail on Key Homeland Bill Provision

CongressDaily

WASHINGTON — U.S. President George W. Bush and congressional Republicans finally prevailed in a key battle over homeland security legislation Tuesday, after a partisan brawl that delayed approval of a homeland security department for four months.

The Republicans’ victory came after three Senate moderates, Senators John Breaux (D-La.), Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), said they would support a new GOP proposal on personnel rules for the new department.

Their support broke a stalemate on this issue by giving Republicans the votes they need in the Senate to prevail on the personnel issue this week.  The new measure likely will first see action in the House — possibly today — and afterwards in the Senate.

In a statement, the three moderates said that while they continue to support their own amendment on the issue, the new Republican amendment “represents improvement.”

“In the end, most members of the Senate want to pass homeland security legislation this week,” they said.  “We will vote for this proposal when it reaches the Senate floor.”

Immediately after the trio announced their decision, Democratic leaders in the Senate conceded defeat on the personnel issue and moved to approve the underlying bill by week’s end.

The new measure would add language making it slightly more difficult for the president to waive collective bargaining rights for employees of the new agency in part by allowing a mediator.  Most Democrats and labor unions are expected to oppose the new proposal.

A description circulating on Capitol Hill indicates the bill would allow armed pilots in airline cockpits and would allow a one-year delay in baggage screening.

Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said that while he did not support the GOP employment rules, he would allow a vote on them.

“There may be differences of opinion on different components of the legislation, but there is no disagreement that we need to complete work on this bill,” he said.

The endorsement by Breaux, Chafee and Nelson and the concession by Democrats give Bush a legislative victory a week after he claimed that the GOP’s electoral victories provided a mandate on Capitol Hill.

Although Democrats dispute Bush’s interpretation of the election results, Breaux, Chafee and Nelson said in a statement, “There is no doubt that the supporters of the [GOP amendment] are in a better negotiating position following the elections of last week.”

“It was a good campaign issue for them,” Majority Whip Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said.

Senator Dean Barkley (I-Minn.) voiced his unequivocal support for compromise homeland security legislation being negotiated by lawmakers and White House aides.

“If there is a compromise being worked out in the Senate, you can guarantee that I will support it,” said Barkley, who was sworn in Tuesday.  Barkley spoke at the White House following a meeting with Bush.

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U.S. Response II:  Scanner Increases Security at Thai Port

Thailand’s Laem Chabang port plans to receive an X-ray machine as part of U.S. efforts to more carefully monitor shipments to the United States, the Bangkok Post reported today (see GSN, Nov. 11).

The Post did not indicate whether U.S. inspectors would accompany the X-ray machine, which can reportedly screen a potentially dangerous shipping container in three minutes.  The United States is promoting its Container Security Initiative worldwide (see GSN, Nov. 6).  Officials have previously made arrangements to station U.S. inspectors at ports in China, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Canada (Bangkok Post, Nov. 13).

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U.S. Response I:  High-Level Responders Simulate National Crisis

Former U.S. officials simulating the roles of U.S. leaders deflected an attack during the Silent Vector anti-terrorism exercise last month, but they were unsure how effective their strategies had been, Aviation Week and Space Technology reported yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 2).

Actual national security situations often play out in the same manner, with vague reports and a great deal of ambiguity, said former Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre, head of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which worked with the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security to organize the exercise.

The exercise, held at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, began when an intelligence report to a mock National Security Council indicated a threat to East Coast energy facilities.  The council identified air travel as the greatest potential threat — specifically pinpointing air cargo and general aviation flights in light of recently increased security on commercial passenger planes.

The council debated whether, and how, to inform the public of the threat.  Former Virginia Governor James Gilmore — portraying the governor of Virginia — said that he and other East Coast governors needed to know the information to coordinate local agencies.

The council disagreed, saying that not enough information was available and that governors would certainly leak the information to the press.  The U.S. government has warned governors of terrorist threats in nine situations since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and that information has taken an average of two hours to leak to the media, Hamre said.

The council alerted state and local law enforcement agencies and told the FBI to identify additional information.  The council planned a press conference for the following day, but by then a leak had occurred.  Panicked residents were already leaving their homes near a nuclear power plant.

The second day featured more precise information about the threat — terrorists were targeting chemical plants, one in particular — and the council grounded cargo and general air traffic.  No attack took place, but it was difficult to determine whether the threat had been false or whether preventive measures had been successful.

Organizers plan to present the lessons learned from the exercise to closed congressional committees in January or later, Hamre said.  The exercise participants identified several problem areas, according to Aviation Week.

One problem was that some local entities use alert systems that are different from the national color scheme.  For example, when the National Security Council raised the alert level for terrorist attacks on the chemical industry from yellow to red, the move caused some confusion.  A national code blue means a small increase in the threat, but in Maryland’s Montgomery County, blue denotes a significant emergency.

Gilmore also said that much of the discussion was focused on air travel, which the national government controls more directly.  Local agencies need to also be prepared for sea- or ground-based attacks, he said.  Air travel is the most potent terrorist weapon, however, because an airplane can travel hundreds of miles in a short period of time, Hamre said.

The former U.S. officials said they also learned that shutting down segments of society — such as cargo air travel — might achieve the terrorists’ own goals, by disrupting the economy.

Hamre and former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn — who portrayed the U.S. president — said that the United States must not react zealously to an immediate threat when the real conflict is drawn out over many years.

“Right now, when we tend to respond to a crisis event, invariably what we do is take hasty emergency measures and everyone works overtime and we just wear ourselves out trying to do protective measures,” Hamre said.  “And, frankly when we respond, we become weaker at least for a while.  We need to reverse that,” he added.

Participants said that it is difficult to craft a public communications strategy during a crisis, but the media may provide some necessary coherence.

“You can’t fault them [the media] for that because it is exactly what they do,” Hamre said.  “But they are creating a lot more coherence than the government can possibly create at a time when it is in the middle of a crisis,” he added.

The council also had difficulty deciding when to remove the ban on some air travel — no one was sure when the threat ended.

The exercise was designed to examine how the government would deal with vague intelligence on terrorist threats, Hamre said.  The United States needs a central analysis and command center to deal with terrorist threats, in particular to deal with multiple threats simultaneously, ANSER head Randy Larsen said.

“If we had a major oil refinery fire in Houston, part of southern California’s electrical grid offline, a mysterious flu-like illness in Chicago, an aircraft hijacking in Cleveland and ATM machines on the blink all along the East Coast, would any single organization be looking at all of this information?  Not today,” Larsen said (David Hughes, Aviation Week and Space Technology, Nov. 11).

[EDITOR'S NOTE:  Sam Nunn is co-chairman and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by National Journal Group.]

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U.S. Response II:  FBI Unprepared for Pro-Iraqi Terrorism in United States, Critics Say

More than a year after the Sept. 11 attacks, the FBI still has not assessed in detail which terrorist groups within the United States might conduct attacks in retaliation for a U.S. strike on Iraq, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Oct. 29)

“No evidence I’ve seen shows they have a sense of urgency or a thoughtful plan or very much information to predicate a plan on,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham (D-Fla.) said.  “There will be hell to pay if we don’t use the next 60 days (before a war with Iraq might begin) to do everything in our power to dismantle their capability,” he added.

The FBI has concentrated its efforts on Islamic militants that are part of ongoing investigations and on a small number of Iraqi agents, White House and congressional officials have said.

“They still don’t know where the terrorists are, how many are here, what their intentions are, what kind of support network they have,” Graham said.  “They can’t give me an answer because they don’t have one ... They have so little to show for their work and we have so little time to take action now,” he added.

Most analysts agree that there is little risk of the Iraqi intelligence service conducting terrorist attacks against the United States, said Daniel Benjamin, a member of the National Security Council during the Clinton administration.   If Hussein felt he was close to being overthrown, however, he might attempt to enlist the help of other terrorist groups, Benjamin said.

In contrast to the CIA, which has in-depth information on a wide range of terrorist operations, FBI officials “still aren’t looking at this as an intelligence agency, but as cops,” said a U.S. official who has been briefed on FBI assessments and plans.  “You get the sense they don’t really have a clue” about domestic terrorists in the United States, the official said.

FBI officials have denied that they are unprepared.  “We are doing things far beyond what has been done before,” an official familiar with the bureau’s efforts said.

Law enforcement sources have said, however, that FBI agents in the 56 terrorism task forces throughout the country have concentrated primarily on identifying and monitoring militant Iraqis support of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein within the United States.  FBI agents have also begun re-establishing contacts with anti-Hussein dissidents and other refugees who were employed as intelligence sources during the 1991 Gulf War, sources said.

A senior FBI official defended the bureau’s methods, according to the Post.

“It’s a matter of trying to assess the threat and where it might come from if we go to war,” the official said.  “There is very real concern about a number of possibilities, both Iraq-connected and from other groups ... We’re doing what you’d expect us to do:  measuring the threat, talking to old contacts,” the official added (Priest/Eggen, Washington Post, Nov. 12).

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U.S. Response:  Italy Agrees to Join Container Security Initiative

Italy has agreed to join the U.S. Container Security Initiative, the U.S. Customs Service announced Thursday.  The service plans to station U.S. inspectors at the Italian ports of La Spezia and Genoa, according to a Customs press release (see GSN, Nov. 6).

Officials have previously made arrangements to station U.S. inspectors at ports in China, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Canada (see GSN, Oct. 28; U.S. Customs Service release, Nov. 7).

For further information, see:

Fact sheet on U.S. Container Security Initiative

U.S. Customs Container Security Initiative Information

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