I’d also like to recognize Jim Engleman, CBP’s Director of Field Operations; Neil Shannon, CBP’s Acting Port Director for Baltimore; and Curt Springer, Captain of the Port.

Today, we are here to showcase a unique tool in our arsenal of detection technology, to protect our country, our homeland.

The Eagle has landed in the Port of Baltimore.

Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency of our country that was created two years ago as part of the Homeland Security Reorganization.

The priority mission of Customs and Border Protection is homeland security— preventing terrorists and terrorist weapons, including Weapons of Mass Destruction, from getting into our country.

The Port of Baltimore is one of our country’s most important seaports. Close to 140,000 cargo containers arrive here at the port each year. And I look forward to working with all of you here to ensure that the Port of Baltimore has the manpower and technology it needs to protect this port and keep the citizens of Maryland—and the citizens of the greater Washington-Baltimore area—as safe and secure as possible.

Customs and Border Protection has a team of nearly 150 employees working here in the Port of Baltimore. Most of them are CBP Officers. These men and women in the dark blue CBP Officer uniforms help protect this port, Maryland, and our country every day, day in and day out. They are America’s Frontline.

After 9/11, America’s seaports stood out as the “Achilles Heel” of defending our homeland.

The responsibility for inspecting goods entering the United States and securing our borders was fragmented in several different federal agencies. And, almost none of our seaports had the kind of technology needed to detect terrorist weapons, including the “sum of all fears”—Weapons of Mass Destruction.

In the days after 9/11, few could have envisioned what is a reality today—a single unified border agency for our country—U. S. Customs and Border Protection—with a priority mission of keeping terrorist and terrorist weapons from getting into our country.

And few could have envisioned the strong partnerships that have sprung up with state and local agencies in an unprecedented national effort to combat terrorism and protect our ports.

Today, the Eagle has landed. This Eagle—this powerful x-ray imaging machine that we unveil today—is part of our strategy, developed after 9/11, to better detect the potential for terrorists concealing weapons inside one of these containers.

The Eagle helps us accomplish two goals—our “twin goals”: achieving increased security against the terrorist threat, and doing so without shutting down the flow of trade and damaging our economy.

The Eagle can take an x-ray image of a 40-foot container in less than a minute.
Our CBP Officers, who operate this equipment, can quickly see if there is anything of concern hidden inside a container. This is the third x-ray type scanning machine we have deployed to the Port of Baltimore since 9/11.

Before 9/11, there were none!

All inspections had to be done manually by our CBP inspectors, physical inspections that could take hours—not a minute—so we weren’t able to do as many inspections.

The Bush Administration has quadrupled the number of x-ray type scanning machines at our ports of entry since 9/11. With the Eagle, and similar machines, we have increased our numbers of inspections six-fold since 9/11. Indeed, right here at the Port of Baltimore, CBP inspects 14 percent of containers arriving here—over twice the national average.

Equally important, as part of our strategy to secure America, its ports and our borders, we now obtain advance electronic information on all containers heading to our seaports, heading here, long before they arrive.

We evaluate every one of these containers—100 percent—for terrorist risk at our National Targeting Center, and the CBP Cargo Analysis Unit here at the Port of Baltimore.

And, we inspect—using the Eagle or similar machines—100 percent of the containers that pose a potential terrorist threat!

They are screened by x-ray scan and by radiation detection equipment—both.

Indeed, in many instances, CBP Officers are working right now in foreign seaports in many countries to inspect high-risk containers before they are loaded on board ships bound for the Port of Baltimore—and other U.S. seaports—ports like Rotterdam and Hamburg.

This is the strategy that President Bush has put in place, working with Governor Ehrlich and others.

I might mention that, while we are showcasing the Eagle here today, Secretary of Homeland Security Mike Chertoff will be in Los Angeles tomorrow to highlight more of the detection tools in the CBP arsenal that are protecting our ports.

I might also mention that one of our most important partners in assuring port security is the U.S. Coast Guard.

Conclusion
I am proud of how far we have come in a few short years to better protect our seaports against terrorists and terrorist weapons.

I am proud of what we have been able to accomplish by working together—state and local agencies, the private sector, and other federal agencies.

I look forward to continuing our work here in Maryland with Governor Ehrlich—and the Maryland Congressional delegation—to ensure that the Port of Baltimore has the latest detection technology to protect this great state—its citizens and its economy—from terrorist attack, to protect our nation, and to protect one of our nation’s most important seaports.