Pact with Liberia allows ship searches

Pact will let U.S. search ships 

Boats with Liberian flags can be boarded 
February 14, 2004






BY EDWARD HARRIS
ASSOCIATED PRESS




DAKAR, Senegal -- U.S. Navy sailors may board thousands of commercial ships in 
international waters to search for weapons of mass destruction under a 
landmark pact between the United States and Liberia, the world's No. 2 
shipping registry. 

Wednesday's accord comes amid fears that terror networks would use ships for 
attacks, taking advantage of comparatively lax security on the waters after 
crackdowns in the skies. 

Liberia has held a U.S.-based shipping registry since 1949 and now hosts more 
than 2,000 foreign vessels. 

It ranks second only to Panama in total shipping tonnage in U.S. ports, under 
so-called flags of convenience that offer cheap fees and easy rules. A third 
of oil imported in the United States arrives on Liberian-flagged tankers. 

With the pact, U.S. forces may board and search any Liberian-registered 
foreign ship they suspect of carrying weapons of mass destruction, their 
delivery systems or related material, State Department spokesman Richard 
Boucher said Friday in Washington. 

The pact is the first of its kind, Boucher said. He confirmed Washington is 
seeking similar deals with other nations but declined to identify them. 

With commercial ships transporting 80 percent of the world's traded goods, 
security experts worry that vessels, ports and other links in the maritime 
economic chain might make tempting targets. 

Suicide attacks killed 17 sailors on the American destroyer USS Cole in Yemen 
in 2000 and a crewman on the French oil tanker Limburger off Yemen's coast in 
October 2002. Terrorists tried and failed to attack another U.S. destroyer 
before succeeding against the Cole, and authorities in Singapore and Morocco 
recently have foiled similar plots. 

Ships also can be used to transport weapons or nuclear components for use on 
land. 

Explosives used to blow up two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 and nightclubs 
in Bali in 2002 allegedly were brought in by ships. And in October, British 
and American authorities intercepted a shipment of nuclear components bound 
for Libya on a German freighter, helping to prod Libya to reveal -- and 
renounce -- its nuclear weapons program in December. 

Without the U.S.-Liberia pact, Liberian-flagged ships carrying suspect 
materials had to be shown to be breaking international law, or entering U.S. 
waters, before the United States could act unilaterally, experts say. 

To interdict a ship flying a foreign flag, the Navy must work through 
diplomatic channels with the government where the ship is registered -- a time-
consuming process, they say. 









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