Coast Guard’s Status Is on a Rising Tide

The Liberian-flagged tanker Cupid Feather doesn’t look out of the ordinary. It is old and rusting, and its deck is deserted as it tosses at anchor in the wind-whipped swells of Chesapeake Bay, awaiting clearance to enter one of the nation’s most strategic and target-rich waterways.

“Let’s take a look,” says Cole Hayes, captain of the Coast Guard patrol boat Tempest. His radioman on the bridge nods. “Cupid Feather,” he says, picking up a microphone. “This is Naval Warship 2. Switch to channel zero-niner. We are dispatching a Coast Guard detachment to board you. Have your pilot ladder ready.”

An inflatable Zodiac, launched from the Tempest, bounces over the top of the 6-foot swells toward the Cupid Feather, carrying six “Coasties” armed with 9-millimeter pistols and dressed in ski masks and cold-weather suits to protect them from a sub-zero wind chill. In minutes, they are up the ladder and on deck to check the passports of the crew of 24 hired in Taiwan, inspect cargo, look into spaces where a person could hide, talk to the Indian captain and determine whether the vessel represents any threat to homeland security.

Welcome to the post-9/11 Coast Guard, the smallest of the five U.S. military branches and the one whose role has been most dramatically altered by the war on terrorism. No longer does anyone joke that the Coast Guard’s motto -- “Semper Paratus” (Always Ready) -- really translates as “Simply Forgot Us.”

Traditionally an underfunded orphan of the military establishment, the 39,000-member agency -- only slightly larger than New York City’s Police Department -- has been transformed from an emergency response outfit that rescued fishermen and interdicted drugs into a 24/7 combatant using preemptive, aggressive actions to secure the nation’s 95,000 miles of coastline and 361 major ports.

“We used to have one boat in the barn, so to speak, and we’d bring it out and respond when called upon,” says Vice Adm. James Hull, commander of the Atlantic Area. “It was a firehouse response. Now we’re proactive. I want the bad guys to see our presence, to see our boats, to see our planes, to know we rely on intelligence and technology and say, ‘Geez, I’m going to go someplace else. This isn’t worth it.’ ”

The Coast Guard -- which was downsized by 10% in 1996 -- used to have a budget that often didn’t keep up with inflation.

Even though it is a branch service, like the Army and Air Force, it was assigned to the Department of Transportation. Its armada was the sixth largest in the world but was, by some estimates, the 41st oldest, with the average age of its large ships 28 years. Some cutters patrolling off Alaska dated to World War II. In Congress, the Coast Guard had few advocates.

“All that changed suddenly and dramatically with 9/11,” said Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.), chairman of the House subcommittee that overseas the Coast Guard. “Let me give you an example. On September 10th of 2001, 1% of the guard’s budget was going to port and homeland security. September 12th, it was 60%.

“Because of the new role the Coast Guard has, in addition to its traditional missions, we’ve been able to put together a coalition of members of Congress who advocate the funding to get the job done,” LoBiondo says. “There’s no question the Coast Guard can do the job if it has three things: more money, more manpower, more modern assets.”

The agency has diverted resources from some of its traditional duties, such as monitoring fisheries and maritime environmental protection, to meet its new goals. But senior officials said the guard’s primary nonmilitary duty -- search and rescue -- has not been adversely affected.

The Coast Guard’s 2003 budget included the largest increase for operating expenses since World War II, and its 2004 budget of $6.9 billion was up 13% from the previous year. A 15% manpower increase has been authorized and a team from Lockheed Martin Corp. is working to modernize the guard’s fleet. The Coast Guard now has a full seat at the intelligence table and reports to Homeland Security instead of the Transportation Department.

No port has been closed because of intelligence that a terrorist attack was planned. And there are no “bad guys” on the Cupid Feather -- the captain’s paperwork is in order and the vessel is cleared to proceed to Newport News to pick up a load of coal.

In fact, although a ship was kept at anchor in the harbor last March when a boarding party found two Iraqis among the crew (they were soon determined not to be terrorists and were cleared along with the vessel), very little out of the ordinary has been happening at the nation’s ports.

“At first, when we started the boardings after 9/11, there was a lot of resistance from the merchant community,” says Lt. Bob Griffin, chief of the Coast Guard’s local security branch. He notes there is a fine balance between providing homeland security and not interrupting the flow of commerce in a nation where 95% of overseas trade moves by ship and $750 billion in cargo moves through U.S. ports annually. Delays at anchor can cost a ship’s owner $10,000 to $30,000 an hour, Coast Guard officials say.

“Now,” says Griffin, “the captain sends a boatswain to meet you at the gangway and he’s got the master key, the passports and the ship’s documents in hand. They realize that this is how we do business after 9/11. Are ports safer as a result? Most definitely.”

The Coast Guard does not release its ranking of the nation’s most vulnerable ports. But maritime officials agree Hampton Roads -- a name that refers to Norfolk and several surrounding waterside cities -- is arguably the most strategic port in the United States. “If you’re concerned about security,” said Adm. Hull, “you can start here.”

Sprawling around the area’s waterways are the world’s largest naval station and more than a dozen military facilities, including three Army posts, a naval air station and an Air Force base. There are shipyards with dry docks, a nuclear power plant, a propane facility, a petroleum refinery and petroleum storage faculties, and commercial shipping complexes that handle 1.7 million cargo containers a year. Hampton Roads is also home of the Navy’s Atlantic Fleet.

“Can you imagine what an ambitious terrorist could do if he took a ship loaded with explosives into the harbor?” asks Hayes, the Tempest captain. “He could definitely make the evening news.”

Coast Guard officers said other concerns include suicide attacks similar to the one in 2000 on the guided-missile carrier USS Cole in Yemen, an attack on the three long bridge-tunnels in Hampton Roads, the possibility that terrorists would try to use a ship with an inflammable cargo as a weapon.

Technology under development will enable inspectors to scan the contents of cargo containers and detect if they have been opened during shipment. X-rays can already detect chemical or biological weapons inside the large metal boxes, but only a small percentage of containers are thoroughly examined. Containers will remain a security concern until all are inspected, terrorist experts say.

“Ports are inherently more vulnerable and more difficult to secure than airports,” said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va. “They don’t have the relatively narrow check points that allow security personnel to intimately inspect anyone passing through. For the terrorist, the most compelling thing about ports as targets is their combination of accessibility and concentrated value.”

The Coast Guard has responded to the potential threat in myriad ways. It has increased patrols and random boardings and is establishing SWAT teams that can lowered from helicopters onto the deck of ships. A new force of 100 armed sea marshals -- similar to air marshals who ride commercial jetliners -- is also available to ride cruise and cargo ships into port to ensure vessels go where they are meant to.

Under Operation Liberty Shield, arriving merchants now must give the Coast Guard 96 hours’ notice, instead of 24. In strategic areas, such as Hampton Roads, the Coast Guard and Navy’s jurisdiction extends 12 miles, instead of two, out to sea. A 500-yard security zone surrounds all U.S. naval ships and vessels that approach within 100 yards risk a $250,000 fine and being sunk.

Cargos, manifests and ports of call are studied by specialists who assign each ship a color code.

“Red” ships that come from trouble spots like the Middle East or carry dangerous cargo are boarded and searched, sometimes 12 miles at sea, and escorted into the harbor. “Green” ships, like the Cupid Feather, represent no known threat but are still subject to random boardings, which one officer says is tantamount to a “snap exam.”

“Essentially if you’re trying to access the threat to a port, the first thing is to rule out who is not a threat,” says Lt. Commander Rob Nelson. His “office” is a 50-foot-high tower, set up in the aftermath of 9/11, that resembles a flight-control center. Radar tracks each vessel in or near the harbor, four cameras relay pictures from strategic land sites and guardsmen communicate via radio with onboard boatswains.

Lt. Frank Flood, who used to run search-and-rescue missions, now finds himself patrolling Chesapeake Bay in a Sikorsky H60J helicopter. “Operation Liberty Shield is some of the most important work I’ve done. I take it personally,” he says. “My wife and baby live 12 miles down the road.”

On a recent patrol, Flood dips down to 100 feet. He skims along the shoreline, passing aircraft carriers and a line of anchored merchant ships, reaching from the harbor to the open seas. He counts six Coast Guard patrol boats scattered across the bay. He looks for anything out of the ordinary: Perhaps a van pulled over to the side on one of the bridges or someone photographing a military facility or a “fishing” boat lingering near bridge pilings or a high-speed small boat such as the one used in the Cole attack.

“I like to go low and make a lot of noise and show the flag for anyone who might be looking at the area as a target,” he says. “It’s the cop-on-the-corner philosophy.” He turns down the south branch of the Elizabeth River and runs the length of another tunnel-bridge.

After several hours he heads for home. “It pretty much looks like business as usual down there today,” he says.

Which is the whole idea.