WASHINGTON - Lapses by private port operators, shipping lines or truck drivers could allow terrorists to smuggle weapons of mass destruction into the United States, according to a government review of security at American seaports. The $75 million, three-year study by the Homeland Security Department included inspections at a New Jersey cargo terminal involved in the dispute over a Dubai company's now-abandoned bid to take over significant operations at six major U.S. ports.
The previously undisclosed results from the study found that cargo containers can be opened secretly during shipment to add or remove items without alerting U.S. authorities, according to government documents marked "sensitive security information."
The study found serious lapses by private companies at foreign and American ports, aboard ships, and on trucks and trains "that would enable unmanifested materials or weapons of mass destruction to be introduced into the supply chain."
The study, expected to be completed this fall, used satellites and experimental monitors to trace roughly 20,000 cargo containers of the millions arriving each year from Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
And, in a civil suit filed in July, prosecutors accused the International Longshoremen's Association, the 65,000-member union that supplies labor to ports from Florida to Maine, of being a "vehicle for organized crime" on the waterfront. The complaint accused union executives of being associates of the Genovese and Gambino crime families. The allegations, assailed by the union as unjust and untrue, are inching toward trial amid heightened concern over port security.