How safe, secure is Port Canaveral cargo?

Port Canaveral has just opened our border to 65,000 or more cargo containers a year traveling to and from harbors around the globe. Unnerving to some, its new cargo terminal is the first in the United States to be run by a contractor with headquarters in the Middle East.

In a channel lined by busy cruise ships and a U.S. Navy submarine unit, a company led by executives from the United Kingdom and Asia will hoist and stack 20-foot metal boxes from French and Chinese ships. Semi-trucks driven by Americans will haul containers — and whatever they hold — past homes, shops and offices along State Road 528 and U.S. 1.

All of that makes homeland security a more urgent priority for Brevard.

So FLORIDA TODAY pursued answers to two security-related questions in an in-depth examination of the port's new cargo operation:

•How have the Canaveral Port Authority and other agencies prepared to safeguard the public?

•Who controls terminal contractor Gulftainer, based in the United Arab Emirates, and what is their record?

Documents, interviews and correspondence with shipping consultants and journalists overseas portrayed a security system that relies on careful planning, small teams of federal safety officials, the company's desire to protect its people and assets — and considerable public trust.

Gulftainer USA has big plans for Port Canaveral

Big mission, small force

"As a port operator, you don't control the cargo that comes in and out. … To us, a container is a container is a container," said Peter Richards, Managing Director, or CEO, of Gulftainer's worldwide operations. "That's why governments, like U.S. Homeland Security, have security measures in place. We do the job as per their direction."

Because so much security-related information is secret, the public must trust those agencies to detect and solve problems. Yet, their presence is small at Port Canaveral when compared to growing volume of cruise passengers and, soon, cargo containers.

Before the cargo terminal could open, the U.S. Coast Guard required detailed security plans from Gulftainer that includes perimeter fencing and surveillance cameras, said Lt. Commander Stephen West.

Such plans require Gulftainer to incorporate U.S. and international codes, adopted after 9/11, to "detect security threats and take preventative measures against security incidents."

Those documents may not be disclosed to the public, West told FLORIDA TODAY.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, meanwhile, is responsible for policing the contents of containers. It is not staffed to open and search most containers, but will have ongoing access to Gulftainer's computerized logistics system to help prioritize inspections, Richards said. All containers must pass through radiation detectors as they enter and leave the cargo terminal.

Customs and Border Protection anticipated growth at Port Canaveral and is receiving additional officers, spokesman Keith Smith said.

The Brevard County Sheriff's Office, meanwhile, polices visitors and workers at the port and enforces restrictions on access to secure areas such as cargo yards.

For its part, Guftainer, doing business in Florida as GT USA, plans to hire 500 workers and invest as much as $100 million in new gantry cranes, offices, computerized logistics systems and other equipment. FLORIDA TODAY found no information suggesting the 37-year-old company has risked its business assets for political reasons. It operates cargo terminals in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Iraq and Pakistan.

"Gulftainer is really well-known throughout the world and has a good reputation for being very methodical," said West, whose Coast Guard station neighbors the terminal.

Gulftainer era officially begins at Port Canaveral

Security politics

Although port and container safety is the biggest concern, fear and political opposition has presented a second security-related challenge for Gulftainer in its first U.S. market.

Politically conservative news sites and blogs have campaigned against the deal since U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-California, in July 2014 called for a homeland-security examination by the Treasury Department's Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. Hunter has objected to foreign control of "strategic infrastructure."

Websites such as the Washington Times, Newsmax and World Net Daily portrayed the company's Arab ownership as a security threat. Without specifics, blogs have referred to the UAE's alleged "links to terrorism."

One recent report, by the 1776 Channel website, accused Gulftainer of shipping arms to Iranian militias through its terminal at Umm Qasr, Iraq, citing as its source an Iraqi website that quoted one anonymous port official.

Anticipating such a reaction, port commissioners had already required Gulftainer to apply voluntarily for the Treasury review, weeks before Hunter's request, port and federal records show. The company also pursued an optional step of filing its lease with the Federal Maritime Commission, which reviewed and published the agreement in the Federal Register and invited public comment, records show.

Port commissioners and Gulftainer executives wanted a clean bill of health from Washington to defuse the type of politics that doomed the 2006 purchase of cargo terminals in New York, New Orleans and Miami by UAE-owned DP World.

But Treasury's foreign-investment committee declined their request for a full review. In a letter, it said a lease on "two yet unused berths and approximately 20 adjacent acres of undeveloped land" fell outside its scope of investigating foreign purchases of American companies or critical infrastructure.

Last Wednesday, the Iraqi Port Authority issued a statement describing the report of Gulftainer shipping arms to Iranian militias as "not correct and completely baseless."

In an interview, Richards — a U.K. native and part-time resident of Satellite Beach since 2008 — sounded personally wounded by the accusation against Gulftainer in Iraq.

Richards himself entered Iraq in 2003 to develop trust and submit proposals to U.S. and British authorities. Gulftainer was vetted and deemed a qualified vendor, a company statement said. For years it has provided secure shipping and logistics support to the U.S. military and government agencies.

That work led to its 2008 concession for a cargo terminal at the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr. Port Vice Chairman Naji Abdullah said Gultainer's performance there has been "characterized by professionalism, credibility, transparency and honesty."

Who's in control?

Gulftainer is privately owned and controlled by the Jafar family from Sharjah, UAE, led today by brothers Badr, 34, and Majid, 37. Journalists and trade consultants who work in the Middle East portrayed them as jet-setting, Western-style business people who have campaigned for economic development, women's empowerment and clampdowns on government corruption as solutions to Arab unrest.

In 2010, Gulftainer Chairman Badr Jafar founded the non-profit Pearl Initiative through the United Nations in New York to promote better corporate citizenship and transparency throughout the Middle East.

The UAE, meanwhile, is among the United States' most loyal allies, committing troops and money to campaigns in Eastern Europe, Africa and Iraq even when Canada and European nations would not. In 2001, it was among the first nations to condemn al-Qaida and sever ties with the Taliban in Afghanistan, its embassy reports. The 9/11 Commission made no mention of state-sponsored terrorism in the UAE. The UAE has declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.

Although security is critical at Port Canaveral, it remains unclear how Gulftainer, its owners or the location of its headquarters pose a security threat to Brevard County.

Said Richards: "Gulftainer has never, and will never, be involved with anything that that is not fully above-board."

Wayne Price contributed to this report. Contact Reed at 321-242-3631 or mreed@floridatoday.com.