WASHINGTON — The recent shutdown of West Coast ports is a small example of the kind of economic damage that could be caused by a terrorist attack on the U.S. maritime system, a new report finds.

"It will take three months under good conditions to clear the backlog [caused by the 10-day shutdown]. That impacts on every sector of U.S. society," said Stephen E. Flynn, senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said at a media briefing Friday. "If we have a catastrophic event that led to the shutdown of those ports, the cost would be tremendous."

Flynn was part of a task force led by former senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman that found the U.S. complacent and vulnerable to a major terrorist attack one year after the events of Sept. 11.

The Hart-Rudman Commission sounded the first alarm over terrorist threat in 1999.

Among the task force's key recommendations is reallocating resources to bolstering port security, and spending less effort on screening airline passengers and baggage.

"There are terrorists out there who want to attack us here at home," Flynn said. "They want to attack economic targets inside the United States to go at the root of its power."

Hart and Rudman criticized the Senate for failing to act on the president's Department of Homeland Security proposal. Flynn noted that Congress had to take funding mechanisms out of port and maritime legislation to get congressional approval.

By R.G. Edmonson