From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Watchdog Report: Countering Piracy off the Horn of Africa Audio interview by GAO staff with Stephen Caldwell, Director, Homeland Security & Justice Related GAO Work: GAO-10-856, Maritime Security: Actions Needed to Assess and Update Plan and Enhance Collaboration among Partners Involved in Countering Piracy off the Horn of Africa Released on: October 7, 2010 [ Background Music ] [ Narrator: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the Government Accountability Office. It's October 7th, 2010. Since 2007, Somali pirates, operating off the Horn of Africa, have attacked more than 450 ships and taken nearly 2,400 hostages. A group led by Steve Caldwell, Director in GAO's Homeland Security and Justice team, recently evaluated the U.S. government’s counter-piracy planning. GAO's Jeremy Cluchey sat down with Steve to learn more. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] In order to help steer the government's response to piracy off the Horn of Africa, the National Security Council developed an interagency action plan. Can you tell us a little bit about this plan? [ Stephen Caldwell: ] Yeah this was a plan that was agreed to by several of the different key agencies in the government and had three major lines of effort and 14 specific tasks. And the major lines of effort were first to prevent piracy by reducing the vulnerabilities of shipping. The second one was to respond to pirate attacks through an interdiction fleet or some other capability out off the Horn of Africa. And then the third one was to hold pirates accountable through prosecution to hopefully make a deterrent so that they wouldn't continue their piratical acts. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] One of the major points your report makes is that the nature of the piracy threat has changed significantly, even just since the release of the action plan. Can you talk a little bit about how this threat has changed? [ Stephen Caldwell: ] Well the pirate threat, when the action plan came out, was pretty limited to the narrow Gulf of Aden, which is an area that the action plan talked about actually putting a coalition Naval force in to run basically convoys to protect ships. Since that time the pirates have changed their tactics. They've moved away from that area, very broadly out into the Indian Ocean. They've also had problems since that time in terms of a lot of the pirates, even when they've been captured, have been released, so obviously we're not creating a very good deterrent. One of the interesting things in our report is actually we have a map, an interactive map, that shows the expansion of the pirate attacks through the years. One of the other things that's happened is pirates are becoming a little more sophisticated and organized and so their financial networks are probably more sophisticated than they were initially. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] What are some of the federal agencies that are responsible for working to prevent and disrupt piracy? [ Stephen Caldwell: ] So there's a number of agencies involved. There's the State Department, which has an overall diplomatic role in terms of cooperation with other countries. There's the Department of Defense, which has the Navy out there which is actually leading an international coalition of naval ships to combat piracy. You have the Department of Homeland Security with the Coast Guard that's working with U.S. shippers as well as also contributing ships and people, for the effort out in the Gulf of Aden. You’ve got the Department of Justice, obviously responsible for criminal prosecutions as well as responsible for building capacity for other countries to prosecute in the region. You've got the Department of Treasury, which can track financing of pirates. And then you've got the Department of Transportation, which like the Coast Guard works with industry to try to reduce the vulnerability of shippers to piracy. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] In light of all these different agencies with varying responsibilities, what is GAO recommending be done to improve the effectiveness of U.S. counter-piracy efforts? [ Stephen Caldwell: ] GAO recommends that the plan better define the roles and responsibilities of the different federal agencies involved. Of the 14 tasks that are laid out in the action plan, only one of them lays out which agencies are responsible for them. So there can certainly be some uncertainty over which agency should take the lead and a lot of these actually require multiple agency action. We also require that the different agencies try to measure their results in terms of both what's going on with the pirates as well as their costs, so that somehow can measure cost effectiveness of their efforts. And then also revise the plan as appropriate to account for the changing pirate tactics. [ Jeremy Cluchey: ] Are there any other significant issues that the report raises? [ Stephen Caldwell: ] There's two other points that are pretty important. One is that the collaboration, generally within the U.S. government and across the international community, has been very strong. And then the other point is that U.S. interests are pretty limited there. There's very few U.S. flag, U.S. cruise ships that actually go through those areas, maybe three on any given day out of the thousands and thousands of ships that go through there. And a lot of the vessel traffic that is of interest to the U.S. going through there, and this would be mainly oil tankers and container ships, those ships tend to be less vulnerable to piracy because they ride high out of the water and they travel quickly, at higher speeds. So it's harder for the pirates to get alongside them and board them. 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