Singapore hosting multinational maritime exercises
Beginning today, Singapore is hosting weeklong multinational maritime training exercises designed to disrupt the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
The exercises, labeled 'Deep Sabre,' are part of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) that was originally announced by President Bush during a trip to Europe in May 2003. Deep Sabre will be the 18th PSI exercise and the first in Southeast Asia.
Participants will include Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, in addition to the United States and Singapore. The United States will have a Navy destroyer with a Coast Guard Law Enforcement ship-boarding team participating in the Singapore-led exercise. U.S. maritime patrol aircraft will also be involved. Singapore's customs and defense ministries are hosting the exercises.
Singapore's ambassador to the United States, Chan Heng Chee, said PSI is noteworthy because some of the world's most important shipping lanes and trade routes straddle the Southeast Asia archipelagic region, and because Singapore itself is one of the world's-largest container ports, handling 18 million TEUs a year.
She said any use of a WMD in a small city-state like Singapore 'would result in untold catastrophic consequences beyond what we saw on 9/11.'