Air cargo a weak link in security, inquiry told

Ottawa: Governments and airlines are "fighting the last war" by screening luggage and passengers for terrorist threats while all but ignoring the cargo shipments in aircraft holds, the Air India inquiry has heard.
Kathleen Sweet, a University of Connecticut academic and security consultant, predicted Wednesday that future attackers are unlikely to adopt the same tactics used by Sikh extremists in the 1985 Air India bombing, or by Al Qaeda in the 9-11 suicide attacks in the United States.
"Terrorists aren't stupid," Sweet told the inquiry headed by former Supreme Court justice John Major.
"Many of them are well-educated, well-financed . . . . They sit around all day thinking about how they're going to kill us in unique and new ways."
She pointed to air cargo operations as one of the most vulnerable points in the current security system – and one of the most likely avenues of attack in future.
"We have focused so much on passengers and passenger baggage that we have failed to recognize there is a huge part of the aircraft that is loaded up with pallets of cargo . . . . How and where and when that cargo is screened is a huge gap, not just here in Canada but in the United States as well."
Rodney Wallis, a British security expert who has served with the International Civil Aviation Organization, said the situation is better in Europe, where authorities take more care in monitoring the flow of cargo from manufacturer, to truck or rail shipper, to airport.
Nevertheless, he agreed improvements are needed in the whole of the international system.
06/06/07 Jim Brown/Canadian press/Toronto Star, Canada

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Categories: Air India Jun 2007, Cargo Jun 2007, Foreign Jun 2007, Safety Jun 2007