The March 1 edition of Fox News' Special Report featured a report by chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle from the Port of Baltimore designed to clear up “factual confusion,” as host Brit Hume put it, about the Bush administration's deal to let Dubai Ports World (DPW) assume control of terminal operations at six major U.S. ports, including Baltimore's. During the report, Angle emphasized that the U.S. Coast Guard is responsible for port security and listed some of the security procedures in place at the Port of Baltimore, but he ignored the glaring security deficiencies there and at other ports that have been highlighted in recent media accounts.

Critics have raised security concerns about the deal. Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. (P&O), the British firm that currently operates the port terminals, is being purchased by DPW, which is owned by the government of Dubai, a member state of the United Arab Emirates.

In his March 1 report, Angle described the Coast Guard's security measures:

ANGLE: The Coast Guard handles the security at sea and can board ships if necessary to inspect suspicious cargo. Customs and Border Protection work the docks but begin their scrutiny of cargo thousands of miles away, where they get a manifest of everything headed for the U.S. 24 hours before it leaves a foreign port.

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ANGLE: Customs officers at the ports have several pieces of technology to check for radiation and, at least here, two ways to x-ray the contents of a container.

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ANGLE: Coast Guard and Customs also use several sources of intelligence and analysis to determine risk. None of that is shared with the terminal operators such as P&O or DPW, who don't even know what's in the containers they unload, which is why those who work on the docks are having some trouble figuring out what all the fuss is about.

Viewers would not have known from watching Angle's report, however, that “the contents of only 5.6 percent of containers headed into the United States are checked by the gamma-ray machines or manual inspections,” as The New York Times reported on February 26. The Times further noted that “only about a third of the 600 [radiation] monitors needed nationwide” have been installed at U.S. ports, “so only about 37 percent of shipped goods are checked for a dirty bomb or other nuclear device.” The Port of Baltimore, according to the Times, is one of the ports lacking this equipment.

An article in the March 6 edition of U.S. News & World Report also detailed the shortcomings of U.S. port security. According to U.S. News, ports lacking radiation-detecting equipment instead use more than 12,000 hand-held detectors issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) -- many of which “have an error rate of 50 percent.” U.S. News further reported: “DHS also hasn't forced companies to adopt 'smart' containers, boxes equipped with sensors that indicate tampering. 'What they use now,' says port security consultant Joe Bouchard, 'is an easily tampered-with strip of aluminum.' ” U.S. News also reported how, according to Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley (D), budget problems have led to security gaps at the Port of Baltimore: “At the Port of Baltimore, says Mayor O'Malley, wooden blocks were mounted on poles to look like cameras.”

In 2002, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency started the Container Security Initiative (CSI), “a program intended to help increase security for containerized cargo shipped to the United States from around the world.” According to an April 26, 2005, Government Accountability Office report, “35 percent of U.S.-bound shipments from CSI ports were not targeted and not subject to inspection overseas -- the key goal of the CSI program.”

Following the report, Hume questioned Angle about the low percentage of cargo containers being inspected at U.S. ports, to which Angle provided an evasive answer:

HUME: What about the statistic we keep hearing that only some fraction, 5 to 10 percent, I've heard, of cargo is ever actually searched. Does that mean that most of these containers just come into the country unexamined?

ANGLE: What happens is, you now have -- they get a manifest, as we reported there, 24 hours before any ship is ever loaded with things headed for the U.S. --

HUME: In a foreign port.

ANGLE: In a foreign port. In addition to that, in 43 countries now, we actually have U.S. officials at the foreign port who look at the manifest, who talk with officials, who can inspect stuff that is headed to the U.S. And so there is an effort to move the borders out, if you will, to move security further out. In addition, anything that comes over, it's all analyzed by computer programs and intelligence. If it's a new importer, if it's a new product, if it's a different person, anything odd, they take a closer look.

HUME: With x-ray equipment?

ANGLE: With x-ray inspections, whatever.