Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Dangers In Port Security

"The idea of inspecting every shipping container entering every port is at the core of the dream of total antiterrorist security here and abroad. And it is a dream. It shares more with the Land of Oz than the real world as it exists. There are alternatives and they are alternatives people will have to get used to sooner or later, according to Stephen E. Flynn, who serves as the Jeane F. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow in National Security at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Flynn just presented his views at a presentation organized by the Hong Kong Association. Flynn is most worried about the vulnerability of the individual container. He made his case by tracing a container shipped from Asian points to the West Coast of North America (Vancouver) and then onward to Chicago where what was assumed to be an innocent shipment of shoes turns out to be a dirty bomb. At each point in the trip, Flynn explains the vulnerability of the container, while being trucked locally, and then its repeated vulnerability at each intermodal transfer. In Chicago, ‘they pop the container open by breaking the seal and boom,’ he concludes." (Forbes, 13Jun06, Robert Malone) http://www.forbes.com/logistics/2006/06/12/port-security-containers-cx_rm_0613terror.html

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