Lautenberg: Bold action needed to protect merchant ships

Lautenberg: Bold action needed to protect merchant ships    A U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., called for 'bold action' to protect U.S. flag ships from pirates, and said, 'our nation's military is our partner in fulfilling that duty.'
   Chairing a meeting of the Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety and Security subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Lautenberg said, 'a timid approach will not do. We need to take bold action to keep our seas and ship crews safe.'
   John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.V., chairman of the full committee, did not attend the hearing, but issued a statement: 'Arming the crew is not an option. Instead the U.S. military should provide the support and protection of our men and women at sea.'
   Lautenberg seemed to chafe at testimony from Theresa Whelan, deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs, who said, 'We need to ensure that effectively addressing piracy does not come at the expense of other ongoing, critical military commitments.'
   He also said he was concerned about statements made by Commander, U.S. Central Command Gen. David Petraeus, that 'suggest that it is outside the U.S. military's responsibility to protect U.S.-flag vessels.'
   'Why are we asking like an alarm company,' he asked Whelan. When pirates 'are shooting these guns they are not saying these are only meant for the deck or the bridge — they are out to kill people.
   Among those testifying was Philip J. Shapiro, president and chief executive officer of Liberty Maritime Corp., whose ship, Liberty Sun, was attacked by pirates just two days after Navy snipers rescued Capt. Richard Phillips, master of the Maersk Alabama, by killing three pirates who held him hostage for days at gunpoint.
   Shapiro showed a video taken by one of the crewmen during the attack on the Liberty Sun, which was struck four times by rocket-propelled grenades.
   Shapiro said suggestions that U.S.-flag ship owners have not done enough to protect their vessels is 'flat wrong.' 'Our company adopted every measure recommended by international organizations and required by the U.S. Coast Guard's approved security plan for making the vessel a difficult piracy target and more,' he said.
   Shapiro also addressed the question of whether U.S. ships should carry firearms for the crews or have armed private security teams.
   He said many ports and canals bar weapons and noted the United Nation's International Maritime Organization and associations of ship owners discourage carriage of firearms for fear they will escalate violence.
   'In my view, however, the Maersk Alabama incident constitutes a game changer in this regard,' said Shapiro, citing threats from self-proclaimed pirate leaders of violence against American merchant mariners.
   He even said the attack on the Liberty Sun might have been an act of revenge. Shapiro said while U.S. crews have a right of self-defense under an 1817 law, more recent State Department arms export regulations effectively prohibit the arming of vessels. He also said ship owners 'risk being second-guessed in both U.S. and foreign courts' if the guns are used and someone is killed or injured.
   He asked Congress to consider clearing the obstacles that block ship owners from arming ships in self-defense to protect crews when appropriate.
   Shapiro also warned that 'private industry cannot switch from a no firearms regime to an armed protection regime overnight. Our ships need protection now, not months from now. In the interim we need either naval escorts or government security teams for U.S.-flag vessels on high risk transits.'
   While piracy is an international problem, Shapiro said, 'We should not let the complexity of that problem from addressing what we can do in the United States right now to protect American merchant mariners.'
   Both Phillips and Michael Perry, chief engineer, of the Maersk Alabama testified at the hearing. As he did last week in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Phillips said he thought it was the responsibility of the U.S. government to protect U.S. ships with military escorts or by putting troops on ships. Perry agreed, 'Military personnel are the best equipped and most able to provide security to U.S.-flag ships.'
   But both Phillips and Perry said they agreed ships could be further hardened with features such as special safe rooms with a series of doors where crewmembers can flee if pirates attack their ships.
   They also said giving some crewmembers access to guns in an emergency might be a good idea — if a pirate manages to beat down multiple doors to make it to a safe room on the ship, Perry said he did not want to meet him with nothing more than a pocketknife.
   Testimony given at the hearing can be found here. ' Chris Dupin