By Michael Kilian, Washington Bureau

Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON -- The Coast Guard announced Wednesday that it is sending nine of its cutters and two of its port security teams overseas for possible Middle Eastern war duty, when its resources have been strained trying to protect America's ports and waterways from terrorist threats at home.

Vice Adm. James Hull, commander of the 5th Coast Guard District, which is in the Atlantic region and is supplying most of the ships, said the deployment was ordered by President Bush at the request of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "The Coast Guard has a long history of operating jointly with the Department of Defense in matters of national security," Hull said. "We take that responsibility very seriously."

The exact destination of the Coast Guard units was kept secret, though it was announced they would be participating in the Operation Enduring Freedom campaign against Al Qaeda and terrorist-allied groups in southwest Asia and also would prepare for "future contingencies."

A Coast Guard spokesman said that meant possible operations in the Middle East. The vessels were requested because of the Coast Guard's capabilities and experience in shallow waters, he said.

At a Pentagon briefing Wednesday, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a large part of the Coast Guard vessels' mission would be to protect U.S. warships from the kind of attack that badly damaged the destroyer USS Cole at the port of Aden in Yemen in 2000.

"That's what they would help with," Myers said. "Clearly, there's a real threat there."

Arab states Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait have Persian Gulf ports that U.S. naval forces might use to stage an assault on Iraq. In the event of war and the U.S. capture of the Iraqi port city of Basra, the nimble cutters would be well-suited for protecting U.S. military assets there.

Hull noted that the Coast Guard, which recently became part of the new Department of Homeland Security, has long been the principal provider of port security for the U.S. military.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a member of the House National Security Subcommittee, complained that the move will compromise security at home.

"The redeploying of domestic Coast Guard cutters is an example of how our homeland security is being compromised by the nearly exclusive focus on Iraq in the fight against terrorism," Schakowsky said.

"The United States does face an imminent threat from those, like Al Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden, who plot to harm us," she added. "As the president admitted in his [State of the Union] speech, the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and Iraq is not imminent."

But Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), chairman of the National Security Subcommittee, said he favored the use of Coast Guard ships in the Persian Gulf.

There could be more such deployments in the future, said Cmdr. James McPherson, a Coast Guard spokesman.

In a report to Congress last year, Kenneth Mead, the inspector general of the Transportation Department, warned that the Coast Guard's personnel, aging fleet and other resources were being spread dangerously thin by the port security demands prompted by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

After the attacks, the Coast Guard increased the proportion of its resources assigned to protecting ports and waterways from 2 percent to 58 percent, but that commitment has since been cut by about half.

The U.S. receives 46 percent of its imported goods in seaborne containers. A small number of the roughly 18 million containers that enter the country every year are opened and inspected.

U.S. Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner said there is concern that these containers could be used to smuggle a "nuke in a box."

The Coast Guard's Hull acknowledged such concerns, saying, "We remain mindful of our very important responsibilities here at home as well."

GRAPHIC: PHOTOPHOTO: The Coast Guard cutter Adak is hoisted from the water in Norfolk, Va., on Wednesday to be taken overseas by ship. Virginian-Pilot photo by Steve Earley.