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Homeland defense
November 2007
Government Lacks Clear Plans to ID Small Vessels Used as Terrorist Weapons
By Breanne Wagner
 Small boats have been used by terrorists to carry out attacks around the world and they are likely to be employed as weapons in U.S. waterways, the government has recently warned.
Officials believe small vessels — defined as those less than 300 gross tons — are a potential threat because they are easy to obtain and there are few defenses in place to stop them from being used as a platform to launch an attack.
“We are very concerned about people doing harm with small vessels because we have breaches every week,” said Dana Goward, director of Coast Guard maritime domain awareness. An estimated 14 unidentified boats reach U.S. shores each week.
DHS and the Coast Guard have put the spotlight on the possibility of such an attack, emphasizing the need to protect U.S. waterways. But despite efforts to create new security measures, officials are failing to garner the support of small boat owners and operators because of the lack of a clear, cohesive plan.
During a speech in December 2006, Adm. Thad Allen, commandant of the Coast Guard, singled out the threat of waterborne improvised explosive devices on boats, saying that the issue needed extra attention.
While the Coast Guard believes it has done “due diligence” to secure larger vessels, it is now “time to look at this other gap,” Goward told National Defense.
The Coast Guard and DHS are concerned about three specific threat scenarios involving small vessels. First is the use of a boat to smuggle people or weapons of mass destruction into the United States. A second concern, as Allen said, is that a boat will be used as a weapon itself by a suicide bomber. DHS has pointed to the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 as a prime example. A bomb-laden small boat crashed into the Navy ship and exploded in the Yemeni port of Aden. Seventeen U.S. sailors lost their lives.
“That was a vivid demonstration of the damage that a waterborne IED carried in a small vessel can inflict on a much larger ship, even a Navy ship,” said Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff during the national small vessel security summit. “Imagine for yourself the consequences of waterborne IEDs against passenger ships, against tankers, against port facilities themselves,” he added.
The third scenario involves a boat used as a platform to launch a weapon, such as a short -range ballistic missile, Goward said. The government believes the steady flow of foreign vessels into U.S. waterways makes all three situations possible.
In order to decrease the risk of an attack, the government is proposing new security plans. Some suggestions have been met with stiff resistance.
During his speech last year, Allen suggested that it was time for the government to require boat operators to have a special license.
“As of 2006, there’s no mandatory operator or licensing requirements [for boats] in this country…sooner or later we’re going to have to come to grips with the fact that we need to know to a degree of certainty who are operating boats out there,” he said at a National Conference of State Legislatures event.
The announcement quickly drew fire from owners and operators who believe that a new license will do nothing to increase security and will only put an undue burden on the small vessel community.
“When they suggested looking at a license, they floored us,” said Michael Sciulla, senior vice president of the Boat Owners Association of the United States. He argued that boat owners shouldn’t be handled any differently than motor vehicle drivers. “We want to be treated like everyone else,” he asserted.
When asked about Allen’s speech, the Coast Guard played down the issue.
The commandant used the licensing term “somewhat off the cuff,” Goward said. Neither Allen nor the Coast Guard has ever made such a suggestion before, he said.
“Bottom line is that we are not proposing a license.”
Sciulla believes the Coast Guard is making contradictory statements.
“Miscommunication stems from the Coast Guard,” which started with the admiral’s speech last year, he argued. “We have heard that the Coast Guard is shifting position on the licensing issue but we haven’t seen in writing something from Thad Allen.”
Six months after Allen’s controversial announcement, DHS held the national small vessel security summit to discuss “risk management.” The government recognized the need to open a dialogue with the boating community.
“There are more small vessels, but we know less about them,” Goward said.
More than 17 million of these boats operate in U.S. waterways, ranging from commercial vessels to passenger ferries. The vast majority is privately owned.
The American Waterways Operators, an association representing the tugboat, towboat and barge industry, believes that the Coast Guard’s focus on security does not take into account the importance of commerce.
“We are concerned that, as security has come to dominate the [Coast Guard’s] agenda since September 11, 2001, an imbalance has developed in which the objective of facilitating commerce … has been progressively devalued,” said Thomas Allegretti, AWO president, in a statement to the House subcommittee on Coast Guard and maritime transportation. He believes this has created tension between the public and private sides. “Instead of building on the solid foundation of industry/Coast Guard partnership, the recent emphasis on security has promoted a sometimes adversarial relationship,” Allegretti said.
In an attempt to quell concerns from the private side, DHS officials have expressed their intent to ensure that future regulations don’t compromise boaters’ way of life or disrupt the flow of commerce.
“We want to make sure we implement our security measures and protocols in the area of small vessels in a way that doesn’t fundamentally impair the commercial livelihood and the sheer pleasure of taking small boats out on the waterways and the seas that surround this country,” Chertoff said at the DHS summit.
Despite efforts to include the private sector, Sciulla believes that many questions remain unanswered. Reiterating its stance on the licensing proposal, the Boat Owners Association suggested during the summit that if Coast Guard officials want to know who’s operating a boat, they simply ask for a driver’s license. The small vessel community will “support the concept of being required to produce identification as long as it is the same ID required by the Transportation Security Administration when boarding a commercial flight,” a Boat Owner’s Association document said.
But the Coast Guard said it is not allowed to demand identification from a boater, Sciulla said. Under current rules, the agency can only ask for a boat’s registration. “We said go to Congress and ask for that authority,” but there was no response to that suggestion, he lamented.
DHS and the Coast Guard “didn’t have much to sway our opinion,” Scuilla asserted.
The Coast Guard is already working to obtain the authority to ask for a driver’s license, Goward countered. The agency wants the ability to ask operators for an existing government issued identification. This could include a state ID, a driver’s license, or passport. It is not asking for a new boat-specific license, he emphasized.
The Coast Guard acknowledges the difficulty of convincing private citizens to implement new rules.
“Folks are naturally suspicious in a free and open society. If government hasn’t been involved in an arena before, it’s a natural and healthy concern,” Goward said.
The problem is that several false rumors are swirling around the boating community, including the one about a new license.
“I think there’s a lot of misinformation out there,” Goward said. There are 18 different agencies that regulate some part of the maritime domain, he explained, and “we need to clarify some of those things.” Since the Coast Guard is the main agency that enforces maritime security and safety, Goward knows that the onus is on the service to lead the way. “The Coast Guard could do a better job communicating.”
Among the other theories he would like to dispel is that the federal government will impose fees, along with special federal rules. The agency won’t implement any new plans without working with state authorities, he said. Officials also want to work with local governments and the Navy to share resources. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has already transferred some assets and personnel to the Coast Guard, Goward said.
Another rumor in the boating community is that the government is going to require all small vessel operators to purchase an automatic identification system (AIS), also known as a transponder, so that vehicles can be tracked. Not true, Goward asserted.
A transponder will “certainly not be a requirement for all 17 million [boats],” he said. It may be that individual port authorities require them to carry a tracking device, if for example, the boat has to pass an aircraft carrier, a pier or an oil and gas terminal to get to a marina, he explained. But such a decision would be determined at the state and local level based on the amount of risk to specific areas.
DHS is already testing the waters for tracking devices to be used in major ports of entry.
In September, the DHS Domestic Nuclear Detection Office launched a project to look at putting monitors on boats operating in the port of Seattle, said Alfonzo Martinez-Fonts, DHS assistant secretary for private sector coordination. The busy port is filled with passenger ferries and cargo, he said.
Transponders might also be required for international arrivals, Goward said. CBP is currently revising the process for how small boats arrive internationally.
The Coast Guard is considering other security options that don’t include licenses or tracking systems, Goward said. The answer could be something as simple as a combination of rules, extra patrols and increased monitoring on waterways, he suggested.
Meanwhile, government analysts give the Coast Guard and the DHS good marks for protection of maritime assets.
The Congressional Research Service said the government’s security efforts are making U.S. ports and waterways “increasingly well-protected against terrorists.”
The CRS report, “Maritime Security: Potential Terrorist Attacks and Protection Priorities,” said that the waters are more secure thanks to the Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, the Maritime Transportation Security Act and DHS port security grants.
The Government Accountability Office also gave DHS a good grade for maritime security in a September homeland security “progress report.”
The Coast Guard did a good job developing national plans for maritime protection, response and recovery, GAO said. It also met performance expectations for port security, collecting information on arriving cargo and ships and assessing security at foreign ports.
In the CRS report, analysts Paul Parfomak and John Frittelli said that increased government efforts, along with specific challenges to terrorists on U.S. seas, might prevent perpetrators from attempting a waterborne attack.
Terrorists face more obstacles to maritime attacks than land attacks, the report said. This is because sea targets are more scarce than land targets, surveillance at sea provides less cover and ocean conditions make an attack scenario somewhat unpredictable, said Navy Capt. James Pelkofski, according to the report.
“Although a successful attack on U.S. maritime targets would likely satisfy certain objectives of known international perpetrators such as al-Qaida, tactical uncertainties and security deterrents may lead terrorist planners to turn their attention elsewhere,” Parfomak and Frittelli wrote. They point out that since 1997, less than one percent of global attacks involved sea targets.
But this does not mean the government should stop worrying about the threat, Parfomak and Frittelli warned. Overall, the likelihood of such an incident is hard to forecast, given that previous attacks, such as on the USS Cole, are “not necessarily a reliable predictor of future activity,” the report said.
Extremists are adaptable and flexible, and evidence shows that they have at least considered U.S. targets. Information from captured al-Qaida member Abd al-Rahman al-Nashiri included “plans for attacking a wide range of Western maritime targets, including military vessels, oil tankers and cruise ships,” the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security said.
In addition, the likelihood of attacks on certain types of vessels is dependent on the perpetrator’s objectives, Parfomak and Frittelli said. If terrorists aim to maximize human casualties, cruise ships or ferries are likely targets, as well as densely populated U.S. ports. The Washington state ferry system was reportedly under surveillance as a possible target in 2004, the report said.
If terrorists want to cause significant economic damage, they are more likely to strike oil tankers or major bridges, for example. The French oil tanker Limburg was attacked in 2002 in the port of Aden, Yemen, the same location as the USS Cole incident. But in contrast to the Cole, the Limburg was an attack on infrastructure and commerce. Yemeni port shipping volumes plummeted by 50 percent. The Gulf of Aden was flooded with 90,000 barrels of oil.
Reiterating DHS and Coast Guard assertions, the report said terrorists are more likely to use small boats than large boats for waterborne attacks because they “satisfy the overwhelming terrorist requirement for simplicity.”
Please email your comments to BWagner@ndia.org
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