View Full Version : Ports Takeover
al-Canine
02-12-2006, 08:42 AM
United Arab Emirates Firm May Oversee 6 U.S. Ports
A company in the United Arab Emirates is poised to take over significant operations at six American ports as part of a corporate sale, leaving a country with ties to the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers with influence over a maritime industry considered vulnerable to terrorism.
The Bush administration considers the UAE an important ally in the fight against terrorism since the suicide hijackings and is not objecting to Dubai Ports World's purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co.
The $6.8 billion sale could be approved Monday and would affect commercial port operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.
DP World said it won approval from a secretive U.S. government panel that considers security risks of foreign companies buying or investing in American industry. The U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States "thoroughly reviewed the potential transaction and concluded they had no objection," the company said in a statement.
The committee, which could have recommended that President Bush block the purchase, includes representatives from the departments of Treasury, Defense, Justice, Commerce, State and Homeland Security.
The committee action followed concerns expressed by a Miami-based company, Eller & Co., according to Eller's lawyer, Michael Kreitzer. Eller is a business partner with the British shipping giant but was not in the running to buy the ports company.
The State Department describes the UAE as a vital partner in the fight against terrorism. But the UAE, a loose federation of seven emirates on the Saudi peninsula, was an important operational and financial base for the hijackers who carried out the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the FBI concluded.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) urged the administration to consider the sale carefully. "America's busiest ports are vital to our economy and to the international economy, and that is why they remain top terrorist targets," Schumer said. "Just as we would not outsource military operations or law enforcement duties, we should be very careful before we outsource such sensitive homeland security duties."
Shipping experts noted that many of the world's largest port companies are not based in the United States, and they pointed to DP World's strong economic interest in operating ports securely and efficiently.
"It's in Dubai's interest to make sure this runs well," said James Lewis, who worked with the U.S. committee at the State and Commerce departments.
Stephen E. Flynn, who studies maritime security at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, said even under foreign control, U.S. ports will continue to be run by unionized American employees. "You're not going to have a bunch of UAE citizens working the docks," Flynn said. "They're longshoremen, vested in high-paying jobs."
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/11/AR2006021101112.html
Stephen E. Flynn, who studies maritime security at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, said even under foreign control, U.S. ports will continue to be run by unionized American employees. "You're not going to have a bunch of UAE citizens working the docks," Flynn said. "They're longshoremen, vested in high-paying jobs."
Let's hope the longshoremen, connected though they may be, are as enlightened as those featured in the film, Eraser.
http://www.lifeinlegacy.com/2004/0221/ViterelliJoe.jpg
al-Canine
02-14-2006, 10:23 AM
Port of entry
By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
Published February 14, 2006
How would you feel if, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the U.S. government had decided to contract out airport security to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the country where most of the operational planning and financing of the attacks occurred?
My guess is you, like most Americans, would think it a lunatic idea, one that could clear the way for still more terror in this country. You probably would want to know who on earth approved such a plan -- and be determined to prevent it.
Of course, no such thing occurred after September 11. In fact, the job of keeping our planes and the flying public secure was deemed so important the government itself took it over from private contractors who were seen as not rigorous enough.
Now, however, 41/2 years later, a secretive government committee has decided to turn over management of six of the nation's most important ports -- in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore and New Orleans -- to Dubai Ports World following the UAE company's purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which previously had the contract.
This is not the first time this interagency panel -- called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) -- has made an astounding call about the transfer of control of strategically sensitive U.S. assets to questionable purchasers.
In fact, as of last summer, CFIUS had, since its creation in 1988, formally rejected only one of 1,530 transactions submitted for its review.
Such a record is hardly surprising given that the committee is chaired by the Treasury Department, whose institutional responsibilities include promoting foreign investment in the United States. Treasury has rarely seen a foreign purchase of American assets it did not like. And this bias on the part of the chairman of CFIUS has consistently skewed the results of the panel's deliberations in favor of approving deals, even those opposed by other, more national security-minded departments.
Thanks to the secrecy with which CFIUS operates, it is not clear at this writing if any such objection was heard to the idea of contracting out managing six of our country's most important ports to a UAE company. There would certainly appear to be a number of grounds for rejecting this initiative, however:
• America's seaports have long been recognized by homeland security experts as among our most vulnerable targets. Huge quantities of cargo move through them every day, much of it of uncertain character and provenance, nearly all of it inadequately monitored. Matters can only be worsened by port managers who might conspire to bring in dangerous containers, or simply look the other way when they arrive.
• Entrusting information about key U.S. ports -- including, presumably, government-approved plans for securing them -- to say nothing of responsibility for controlling physical access to these facilities, to a country known to have been penetrated by terrorists is not just irresponsible. It is recklessly so.
• At the risk of being politically incorrect, the proposed new management will also complicate the job of assuring that the personnel working in these ports pose no threat to their operations -- or to the rest of us. To the extent we must remain particularly vigilant about young male Arab nationals as potential terrorists, it makes no sense to provide legitimate grounds for such individuals to be in and around some of this country's most important strategic assets.
• Of particular concern must be the implications for energy security as a very large proportion of the nation's oil imports come through the Atlantic and Gulf State ports that the UAE company hopes to take over. For example, Philadelphia handles some 85 percent of the oil coming into the East Coast; New Orleans is responsible for a seventh of all our energy imports.
Given such considerations, how could even a stacked deck like the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States find it possible to approve the Dubai Ports World's transaction?
Could it have been influenced by the fact a former senior official of the UAE company, David Sanborn, was recently named the new administrator of the Transportation Department's Maritime Administration? Mr. Sanborn is former DP World director of operations for Europe and Latin America.
Or is it because the U.S. government views -- and is determined to portray -- the United Arab Emirates as a vital ally in this war for the Free World? A similar determination has long caused Washington to treat Saudi Arabia as a valued friend even as the Saudis play a double game, working simultaneously to repress terrorism at home and abet it abroad.
Whatever the explanation, the nation can simply no longer afford to have the disposition of strategic assets -- including those with a military or homeland security dimension -- determined by a Treasury-dominated panel in secret without congressional oversight.
Congress should see to it that the United Arab Emirates is not entrusted with the operation of any U.S. ports, and that the Treasury Department is stripped of the lead role in evaluating such dubious foreign investments in the United States.
Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy and lead author of "War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World."
http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20060213-105341-4235r.htm
al-Canine
02-14-2006, 10:24 AM
Schumer Calls for Probe of Arab Port Deal
BY ALEC MAGNET - Staff Reporter of the Sun
February 14, 2006
Senator Schumer yesterday called on the Department of Homeland Security to review a federal committee's decision to allow Dubai Ports World, a company owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates, to buy six American ports, including one in New York.
"Foreign control of our ports, which are vital to homeland security, is a risky proposition. Riskier yet is that we are turning it over to a country that has been linked to terrorism previously," Mr. Schumer said at a news conference. One of the terrorists who flew a plane into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Marwan al-Shehhi, was born in the United Arab Emirates. Other hijackers traveled through that country to America, though President Bush now considers the Emirates an ally in the war on terror.
A British company, Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, currently controls the Port of New York and New Jersey. Dubai Ports World won a bidding war to buy the London-based firm for $6.8 billion. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States cleared the deal, and Mr. Schumer expressed concern that it may have put economic and diplomatic questions before those of national security.
Spokesman for the committee were not immediately available for comment yesterday.
http://www.nysun.com/article/27530
al-Canine
02-16-2006, 05:19 PM
Lawmakers urge White House to review Arab port takeover
Critics contend deal could affect national security
WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. lawmakers formally asked the Bush administration Thursday to reconsider its approval of a sale giving a company in the United Arab Emirates control over significant operations at six major American ports.
The lawmakers, including four senators and three House members, sharply criticized the UAE as inconsistent in its support of U.S. anti-terrorism efforts.
They also said the country was a key transfer point for shipments of nuclear components sent to Iran, North Korea and Libya and was one of only three nations that had recognized the Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government.
"Outsourcing the operations of our largest ports to a country with a dubious record on terrorism is a homeland security and commerce accident waiting to happen," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York. "The administration needs to take another look at this deal."
The Bush administration defended its approval of the sale. A spokesman for the White House National Security Council, Frederick Jones, said Thursday that security implications of the deal were "rigorously reviewed."
The Associated Press reported Saturday that government-owned Dubai Ports World had won approval for the $6.8 billion deal from a secretive U.S. panel that considers security risks of foreign companies buying or investing in American industry.
Since then, a growing faction in Congress wants the White House to reconsider its approval of DP World's purchase of the London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which British shareholders approved Monday.
The British firm, the world's fourth-largest ports company, runs commercial operations at shipping terminals in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States reviewed the transaction and did not object. The committee, run by the Treasury Department, also includes officials from the departments of Defense, Justice, Commerce, State and Homeland Security.
Although it declined to comment on the committee's decision last week, the Treasury Department said Thursday the consensus of the panel's 12 members was that the sale did not present national security problems. The review included an assessment from U.S. intelligence agencies, the department said.
"Clearly no responsibility of government is more important than protecting the national security," the department said in a statement.
Critics have complained that control over port operations by DP World could endanger U.S. security. They cite the UAE's history as an operational and financial base for the hijackers who carried out the September 11, 2001, attacks against New York and Washington.
The lawmakers pressing the White House on Thursday included Sens. Schumer, Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey, and Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, and Reps. Chris Shays, R-Connecticut, Vito Fossella, R-New York, and Mark Foley, R-Florida.
On Wednesday, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Peter King, R-New York, said he spoke to senior White House officials, whom he declined to identify, and urged them to review the purchase. King said he believed the White House took the issue "very seriously and will look into it."
Treasury Secretary John Snow, asked during a budget hearing Wednesday about the committee's approval, said he was not permitted to discuss specific transactions the panel considers.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/16/congress.ports.ap/index.html
Posturing politicians or security conscious watchdogs ... inquiring minds want to know.
al-Canine
02-17-2006, 11:39 AM
Despite Fears, a Dubai Company Will Help Run Ports in New York
By PATRICK McGEEHAN
The Bush administration dismissed the security concerns of local officials yesterday and restated its approval of a deal that will give a company based in Dubai a major role in operating ports in and around New York City.
Representatives of the White House and the Treasury Department said they had given their approval for Dubai Ports World to do business in the United States after a rigorous review. The decision, they said, was final.
Dubai Ports World is buying the British company that currently operates the cruise-ship terminal on the West Side of Manhattan, one of the biggest cargo terminals in New York Harbor, and terminals in Philadelphia, Baltimore and other big ports.
Several lawmakers, including Representative Peter T. King of Long Island, who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Senator Charles E. Schumer, have criticized the administration for its approval of the deal, saying it was done too quickly and without enough scrutiny of the ramifications for security at American ports.
"In the post-9/11 world, there should have been a presumption against this company," said Mr. King, a Republican. He added that people in the intelligence community had told him they had concerns about how the company operated the port of Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates.
"I'm going to be pushing as hard as I can to slow this down." Mr. King said.
Mr. Schumer said that he was concerned that the company could be infiltrated by terrorists with designs on exploiting the vulnerability of American ports. He noted that the Sept. 11 attacks were financed in part by money that passed through banks in the United Arab Emirates.
"This is not going to go through quietly and secretly the way some people might like," Mr. Schumer said, adding that he feared that diplomacy might have trumped national security in this case.
In an interview in London, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, a financial adviser to the royal family of Dubai, said yesterday, "We are working closely with the Americans."
In mid-January, President Bush nominated a senior executive of Dubai Ports World, David Sanborn, to run the Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration. Mr. Sanborn had been running the company's operations in Europe and Latin America.
Mr. Schumer and six other members of Congress sent a letter yesterday to John W. Snow, the treasury secretary, calling for a more thorough review of the deal, in which Dubai Ports World agreed to pay $6.8 billion to acquire a British shipping company, Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company. A subsidiary of the company, P & O Ports North America, operates the local facilities.
Anthony R. Coscia, the chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, also wrote to Mr. Snow, seeking information about the security review that was conducted. Mr. Coscia said in an interview that he sent the letter after a few attempts to get answers drew no response.
"Clearly, we would expect that information relative to a facility that we operate would be shared with us," Mr. Coscia said. "It is not our role to review and approve this transfer," he said, but added that "given the fact that this is our port and these are employees for whom we feel responsibility, there are issues we would like to become comfortable with."
P & O Ports operates the New York City Passenger Ship Terminal and owns a 50 percent interest in the Port Newark Container Terminal, which is the third-largest cargo terminal on the Port Authority's property. The other half-interest is owned by a subsidiary of Maersk Line, which is based in Denmark.
The Dubai purchase was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, of which Mr. Snow is chairman and which does not usually disclose information about its deliberations, said Brookly McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Treasury Department. Ms. McLaughlin declined to say when the committee began or ended its review of the deal or what national-security implications it considered.
"We as a general rule do not comment at all on any specific transactions," Ms. McLaughlin said. She added that the review could not be reopened unless the company provided false information or omitted important facts.
Stewart Baker, assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security, said his department had no information about Dubai Ports World that justified an objection to the deal. Indeed, he said, the company has cooperated with the department in its efforts to secure American ports and ships in foreign ports.
"We did not find derogatory information in our review," he said.
But that review, Mr. Baker said, did not involve gathering information from outside sources, like the Port Authority, because the committee must keep a proposed transaction secret. He said the committee's investigation began in November and ended in mid-January.
The investigation did not include background checks on the senior managers of the company or an evaluation of how the company screens its own employees, Mr. King said. "Certainly, you would think they would talk to the Port Authority," he added.
Mr. Schumer said he believed that pressure for a second review was beginning to mount in Congress, among Democrats and Republicans. Mr. King said he would consider holding a Homeland Security Committee hearing on the matter if the administration refused to reconsider.
"This can't be treated in a pre-9/11 way," Mr. King said. "There was a tone-deafness here that indicates they didn't show the level of concern that it warranted."
Copyright 2006 | The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/nyregion/17ports.html?
al-Canine
02-17-2006, 01:40 PM
US Democrats plan bill to block Dubai-US port deal
Fri Feb 17, 2006 10:36 AM ET
By Jeremy Pelofsky
WASHINGTON, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Two U.S. Democratic senators said on Friday they would introduce legislation aimed at blocking Dubai Ports World from buying a company that operates several U.S. shipping ports because of security concerns.
Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Hillary Clinton of New York said they would offer a measure to ban companies owned or controlled by foreign governments from acquiring U.S. port operations.
"We wouldn't turn the border patrol or the customs service over to a foreign government, and we can't afford to turn our ports over to one either," Menendez said in a statement.
P&O <PO.L>, the company Dubai Ports World plans to buy for $6.8 billion, is already foreign-owned but the concern is that the purchaser is backed by the United Arab Emirates government.
The UAE company would gain control over the management of major U.S. ports in New York and New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Miami, sparking national security concerns.
"I will be working with Senator Menendez to introduce legislation that will prohibit the sale of ports to foreign governments," Clinton said in a statement.
Officials with the United Arab Emirates Embassy in Washington could not be immediately reached for comment.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a U.S. inter-agency panel that reviews security implications of foreign takeovers of strategic assets, has already reviewed the transaction and did not object.
Despite that review, some Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Congress urged the Bush administration to conduct a more rigorous review. They expressed fears that the UAE was used as a conduit for parts used for nuclear proliferation and that the local banking system had been abused by financiers with possible links to terrorist organizations.
U.S. officials have said the UAE has been a solid and cooperative partner in the fight against terrorism, and have praised the UAE for steps to protect its booming financial sector against abuse by terrorism financiers.
Money for the Sept. 11 attacks was wired through the UAE's banking system, according to U.S. officials. Two of the Sept. 11 hijackers were UAE citizens.
U.S. seaports handle 2 billion tons of freight each year but only about 5 percent of containers entering the United States are examined on arrival.
Similar concerns were raised when a China state-controlled oil company tried to acquire the U.S. oil company Unocal. After pressure from American lawmakers, the foreign company eventually dropped out of the bidding.
(Additional reporting by Caroline Drees.)
© Reuters 2006.
http://today.reuters.com/investing/financeArticle.aspx?type=bondsNews&storyID=2006-02-17T153506Z_01_N17197464_RTRIDST_0_SECURITY-CONGRESS-PORTS.XML
TomJones
02-17-2006, 09:44 PM
Sad that it took the likes of Hilary Clinton to realize this.
al-Canine
02-17-2006, 11:23 PM
Sad that it took the likes of Hilary Clinton to realize this.
The response to this issue has been bilateral, thank heavens. It's a decision that affects us all regardless of political persuasion.
al-Canine
02-19-2006, 01:57 PM
Firm sues to block foreign port takeover
By TED BRIDIS
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- A company at the Port of Miami has sued to block the takeover of shipping operations there by a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates. It is the first American courtroom effort to capsize a $6.8 billion sale already embroiled in a national debate over security risks at six major U.S. ports affected by the deal.
The Miami company, a subsidiary of Eller & Company Inc., presently is a business partner with London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which Dubai Ports World purchased last week. In a lawsuit in Florida circuit court, the Miami subsidiary said that under the sale it will become an "involuntary partner" with Dubai's government and it may seek more than $10 million in damages.
The Miami subsidiary, Continental Stevedoring & Terminals Inc., said the sale to Dubai was prohibited under its partnership agreement with the British firm and "may endanger the national security of the United States." It asked a judge to block the takeover and said it does not believe the company, Florida or the U.S. government can ensure Dubai Ports World's compliance with American security rules.
A spokesman for Peninsular and Oriental indicated the company had not yet seen the lawsuit and declined to comment immediately.
The lawsuit represents the earliest skirmish over lucrative contracts among the six major American ports where Peninsular and Oriental runs major commercial operations: New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia. The lawsuit was filed moments before the court closed Friday and disclosed late Saturday by people working on the case.
The sale, already approved by the Bush administration, has drawn escalating criticism by lawmakers in Washington who maintain the United Arab Emirates is not consistent in its support of U.S. terrorism-fighting efforts. At least one Senate oversight hearing is planned for later this month.
The Port of Miami is among the nation's busiest. It is a hub for the nation's cruise ships, which carry more than 6 million passengers a year, and the seaport services more than 30 ocean carriers, which delivered more than 1 million cargo containers there last year.
A New Jersey lawmaker said Saturday he intends to require U.S. port security officials be American citizens, to prevent overseas companies operating domestic shipping facilities from hiring foreigners in such sensitive positions. Republican Frank A. LoBiondo, chairman of the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee, cited "significant" security worries over the sale to Dubai Ports World.
Caught by surprise over the breadth of concerns expressed in the United States, Dubai is cautiously organizing its response. The company quietly dispatched advisers to reassure port officials along the East Coast, and its chief operating officer - internationally respected American shipping executive Edward "Ted" H. Bilkey - is expected to travel to Washington this week for meetings on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.
The Bush administration in recent days has defended its approval of the sale, and has resisted demands by Congress to reconsider. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack described the United Arab Emirates on Friday as a "long-standing friend and ally" and said the United States and UAE had a good relationship.
President Bush visited the seaport in Tampa, Fla., but did not mention the dispute Friday. The president said an important element of defeating terrorism was taking precautions domestically and working with local government officials.
"We've got to protect ourselves by doing smart things in America," Bush said. "I appreciate working with the mayors on homeland security issues."
One of those mayors, Martin O'Malley of Baltimore, on Saturday harshly criticized the president's approval of the ports deal as an "outrageous, reckless and irresponsible decision" and urged the White House to reconsider the sale. Baltimore is one of the affected ports, and O'Malley is co-chairman of the U.S. Conference of Mayors' Task Force on Homeland Security. O'Malley also is running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Maryland.
Dubai Ports World declined through a spokesman to respond to O'Malley's remarks.
In New York, families of some victims from the September 2001 terror attacks planned to criticize the deal during a press conference Sunday with Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer, a leading critic of the sale. Schumer said he is dubious any assurances can justify involvement by the United Arab Emirates in American ports.
Schumer and other critics have cited the UAE's history as an operational and financial base for the hijackers who carried out the attacks against New York and Washington.
"A lot of families are incensed by this, because you're talking about the safety of the country," said William Doyle, whose son Joseph died at the World Trade Center. ""We have a problem already in our ports because all of our containers aren't checked, but now they want to add this unknown? It's not right."
LoBiondo's legislative proposal would amend federal maritime laws to require facility security officers, which operate at terminals in every U.S. port, to be American citizens. LoBiondo said there are presently no citizenship requirements, which he said permits foreign companies who are or become partners in domestic terminal operations to employ security officers who are not Americans.
"We cannot be lax about our nation's security nor fail to recognize that our ports are realistic targets of terrorists," LoBiondo said.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Port_Security.html
exitwound
02-19-2006, 02:27 PM
The response to this issue has been bilateral, thank heavens. It's a decision that affects us all regardless of political persuasion.
Takes a classy person to see it that way.....but we already knew that about you, al-C :love_02: :happy_11: :happy_12:
Brit Hume: Bush Will Reverse Ports Decision. (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/2/19/114128.shtml?s=ic)
"I don't think the administration will be able to sustain this," Hume told "Fox News Sunday." "I think it will have to reverse itself in some way or create some entity that stands between the company and the management of the ports."
al-Canine
02-20-2006, 08:57 AM
"I'm a lifelong Republican and I think the President's gone insane" – 9/11 dad
Peter Gadiel just doesn't get it.
How, asks Gadiel, whose son James died in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, can a company owned by a terror-linked country get control of our nation's ports?
"I'm a lifelong Republican and I think the President's gone insane," said Gadiel, 58, who heads 9/11 Families for a Secure America.
Two of the 19 9/11 hijackers were citizens of Dubai, the Arab emirate whose bid to run ports in New York, New Jersey and four other cities was okayed by the White House even though investigators have found signs that money used to finance terrorism flowed through Dubai banks.
"How the hell could this happen?" fumed Bill Doyle, 58, a retired Staten Island stockbroker whose son Joseph also died when the Trade Center fell.
"We're not securing our country in any way by selling our ports to foreigners," he said.
Gadiel and Doyle stood with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) yesterday at the harbor to express their outrage.
Bruse DeCell, 55, whose son-in-law died in the attacks, said that homeland security should be the highest concern when approving the activities of foreign business interests.
"This administration is putting the selling of our country on a fast track," he said. "There are a lot of loose ends that caused 9/11 to happen. I'm trying to close them."
Only 5% of the cargo containers entering U.S. ports are inspected, said Schumer, who has called for upgrades in port security for years.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/393038p-333284c.html
Rep. Peter King: Port Takeover Security Inadequate. (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/2/19/161337.shtml?s=tn)
U.S. terms for approving an Arab company's takeover of operations at six major American ports are insufficient to guard against terrorist infiltration, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said Sunday.
"I'm aware of the conditions and they relate entirely to how the company carries out its procedures, but it doesn't go to who they hire, or how they hire people," Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., told the Associated Press.
"They're better than nothing, but to me they don't address the underlying conditions, which is how are they going to guard against things like infiltration by al-Qaida or someone else, how are they going to guard against corruption?" King said.
Port Stupidity (http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/63912.htm)
Gov. Pataki last night hinted broadly that he would seek to extract the Port of New York and New Jersey from the federal contract that hands control of six U.S. harbors to a firm based in the United Arab Emirates. It remains to be seen whether he has the power to kill the deal, but he certainly needs to try.
Pataki and Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich both expressed grave doubts on the deal; Eherlich suggested he'd try to exempt the Port of Baltimore from the new pact, too.
Let's be clear: It's an unnecessary, and exceedingly dumb, deal.
al-Canine
02-21-2006, 12:08 PM
And then we have Cal Thomas (http://www.nysun.com/article/27905) agreeing with a New York Times editorial.... wow.
Pearl Harbor Ahead?
On Sunday, the Australian government issued the following alert to its citizens: "We advise you to exercise a high degree of caution in the United Arab Emirates because of the high threat of terrorist attack. We continue to receive reports that terrorists are planning attacks against Western interests in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Commercial and public areas frequented by foreigners are possible terrorist targets."
The United States has approved a business deal that would turn over the operation of six major American ports to a company that is owned by the UAE, the very country Australians are to be wary of visiting. The obvious question is: If it is dangerous for an Australian to travel to the UAE because of terrorism, isn't it even more dangerous for a company owned by UAE to own the rights to American ports where terror might be directly, or indirectly, imported?
There have been some dumb decisions since the United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, including the "welcoming" of radical Muslim groups, mosques and schools that seek by their preaching and teaching to influence U.S. foreign policy and undermine the nation. But the decision to sell port operations in New York, Newark-Port Elizabeth, Baltimore, Miami, Philadelphia and New Orleans to a company owned by the UAE may be the dumbest of all.
Security experts have repeatedly said American ports are poorly protected. Each year, approximately 9 million cargo containers enter the United States through its ports. Repeated calls to improve port security have mostly gone unheeded.
In supporting the sale decision by a little-known interagency panel called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the Bush administration dismissed security risk concerns. National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones said the sale of the ports for $6.8 billion to Dubai Ports World was "rigorously reviewed" by CFIUS, which, he said, considers security threats when foreign companies seek to buy or invest in American industry. Apparently money talked more than common sense.
In a rare display of bipartisanship, congressional Republicans and Democrats are forging an alliance to reverse the decision. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has announced plans for her Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs to hold hearings. Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. - both members of Collins' committee - have raised concerns. New York's Democratic senators, Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton have also objected to the sale. Clinton and Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., expect to offer a bill to ban companies owned or controlled by foreign governments from acquiring U.S. port operations.
In the House, Reps. Chris Shays, R-Conn.; Mark Foley, R-Fla.; and Vito Fossella, R.-N.Y., are among those who want to know more about the sale. In a House speech, Foley said, "The potential threat to our country is not imagined, it is real."
The UAE was used as a financial and operational base by some of the 9/11 hijackers. A New York Times editorial said the sale takes the Bush administration's "laxness to a new level."
Members of Congress may wish to consider that the UAE was an important transfer point for shipments of smuggled nuclear components bound for Iran, North Korea and Libya by a Pakistani scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan. The UAE was one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government before the U.S. invasion toppled it.
The Department of Homeland Security says it is legally impossible under CFIUS rules to reconsider approval of the sale without evidence the Dubai company gave false information or withheld vital details from U.S. officials. Congress should change that law.
Last year, Congress overwhelmingly recommended against the Bush administration granting permission to a Chinese company to purchase the U.S. oil services company UNOCAL. Six years ago, when a Chinese company took control of the Panama Canal from the United States, retired U.S. Admiral and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Thomas H. Moorer warned of a "nuclear Pearl Harbor."
Congress must stop this sale of American ports to foreign interests and, in an era of terrorism, prevent any more potential terrorist targets from falling into the hands of those who wish to destroy us.
al-Canine
02-21-2006, 02:02 PM
An interesting spin...
Corporate Control of Ports Is the Problem
The problem with the Bush administration's support for a move by a United Arab Emirates-based firm to take over operation of six major American ports -- as well as the shipment of military equipment through two additional ports -- is not that the corporation in question is Arab owned.
The problem is that it that Dubai Ports World is a corporation. It happens to be a corporation that is owned by the government of the the United Arab Emirates, or UAE, a nation that served as an operational and financial base for the hijackers who carried out the attacks of 9-11 attacks, and that has stirred broad concern. But, even if the sale of operational control of the ports to this firm did not raise security alarm bells, it would be a bad idea.
Ports are essential pieces of the infrastructure of the United States, and they are best run by public authorities that are accountable to elected officials and the people those officials represent. While traditional port authorities still exist, they are increasing marginalized as privatization schemes have allowed corporations -- often with tough anti-union attitudes and even tougher bottom lines -- to take charge of more and more of the basic operations at the nation's ports.
In the era when the federal government sees "homeland security" as a slogan rather than a responsibility, allowing the nation's working waterfronts to be run by private firms just doesn't work. It is no secret that federal authorities have failed to mandate, let alone implement, basic port security measures. But this is not merely a federal failure; it is, as well, a private-sector failure. The private firms that control so many of the nation's ports have not begun to set up a solid system for watrerfront security in the more than four years since the September 11, 2001 attacks. And shifting control of the ports of New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia -- along with control over the movement of military equipment on behalf of the U.S. Army through the ports at Beaumont and Corpus Christi -- from a British firm, Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., to Dubai Ports World, is not going to improve the situation.
Unfortunately, the debate has been posed as a fight over whether Arab-owned firms should be allowed to manage ports and other strategic sites in the U.S. Media coverage of the debate sets up the increasingly ridiculous Homeland Security Secretary, Michael Chertoff -- who babbles bureaucratically about how, "We make sure there are assurances in place, in general, sufficient to satisfy us that the deal is appropriate from a national security standpoint" -- against members of Congress -- who growl, as U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-New York, did over the weekend about the need "to guard against things like infiltration by al-Qaida or someone else,"
There are two fundamental facts about corporations that put this controversy about who runs the ports in perspective.
First: Like most American firms, most Arab-owned firms are committed to making money, and the vast majority of them are not about to compromise their potential profits by throwing in with terrorists.
Second: Like most American firms, Arab-owned firms are more concerned about satisfying shareholders than anything else. As such, they are poor stewards of ports and other vital pieces of the national infrastructure that still require the constant investment of public funds, as well as responsible oversite by authorities that can see more than a bottom line, in order to maintain public safety -- not to mention the public good of modern, efficient transportation services.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=62081
al-Canine
02-21-2006, 05:07 PM
Bush says Dubai port deal should go for forward
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Tuesday that a deal for a state-owned Dubai company to manage major U.S. ports should go forward and will not jeopardize U.S. security.
Bush told reporters traveling back to Washington with him from Colorado that he would veto legislation to stop the deal from going through.
"After careful review by our government, I believe the transaction ought to go forward," Bush said. He added that if the U.S. Congress passed a law to stop the deal, "I'll deal with it with a veto.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/21/AR2006022101062.html
One theory about this deal is that it's a quid pro quo - the result of an agreement that was made in the beginning of the Iraq war when we set up our military command center in UAE. Now it is pay back time for the Bush Administration.
If W vetoes such a bill, it would be his first veto.
al-Canine
02-21-2006, 05:39 PM
Rumsfeld Unaware of Port Plans
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld praised the United Arab Emirates Feb. 21 as a valuable military ally but said he knew little about a decision to let a UAE-owned company run key U.S. ports.
Rumsfeld said he was not aware until this weekend of the decision to approve Dubai Ports World’s takeover of a British company that currently runs six major U.S. ports from New York to New Orleans.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=1550265&C=navwar
al-Canine
02-21-2006, 05:42 PM
One theory about this deal is that it's a quid pro quo - the result of an agreement that was made in the beginning of the Iraq war when we set up our military command center in UAE. Now it is pay back time for the Bush Administration.
If W vetoes such a bill, it would be his first veto.
Hmmm, that makes a lot of sense. But what doesn't make sense is that the administration thought this deal could eventually make it through without the outcry that we are seeing now.
edit: if we could only get the media to pay more attention to the Able Danger issues now... but that's another thread... :D
edit: if we could only get the media to pay more attention to the Able Danger issues now... but that's another thread... :D
You are asking the media to sniff out ( pardon the pun) Real News? They still think the Deadeye Dick's Amazing Adventure story has legs.
al-Canine
02-21-2006, 11:12 PM
How Al Qaeda might strike the US by sea
From the CSM archives (the May 15, 2003 edition), an interesting read in light of the current discussions...
Port authorities prepare for a variety of potential attacks from a terror group believed to own as many as 15 ships.
By Peter Grier and Faye Bowers | Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON - Al Qaeda terrorists proved with the attacks in Saudi Arabia this week that they are still capable of staging simultaneous bombings. And they did so at the same time that the US is carrying out its largest public drill to test the preparedness for such an attack at home.
So far, the terrorists have used trucks - as in the 1998 bombings of the US Embassies in Africa and Monday night in Saudi Arabia, and turned airliners into weapons on Sept. 11. Now, one of the biggest concerns of authorities is that the terrorists may try the same thing with another form of transportation - ships.
Smuggling a biological or chemical weapon in a ship container could be just one approach. Another might be exploding an oil tanker at anchor, an action that might wreak devastation on petroleum ports. Or a large vessel could simply be used as a bludgeon, knocking out bridge abutments and blocking ship channels.
The issue is serious enough that on May 6 the Department of Defense held a little-noticed "Impending Storm" exercise that simulated several kinds of shipborne attacks on US cities. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz participated, as well as high-level intelligence and Coast Guard officials and congressional representatives from coastal districts.
"Maritime transportation security is one of the overarching challenges that faces the nation," says Stephen Flynn, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former commander in the US Coast Guard.
Al Qaeda has already demonstrated a capacity for operating on the water. It was a small explosives-laden boat that blew a hole in the side of the USS Cole while it lay at anchor in Aden, Yemen, in October 2000. Seventeen American servicemen were killed. Al Qaeda used the same method near the same port this past October in hitting a French oil tanker.
AL QAEDA may have already amassed a navy, of sorts. At a March 26 House hearing on terrorist organizations Rep. Chris Bell (D) of Texas asked administration officials about intelligence reports that indicate Al Qaeda could own as many as 15 cargo ships. Officials at the hearing didn't answer the question directly. But earlier this year media reports linked Osama bin Laden's group to a network of cargo freighters that could be used either in operations or for group logistics.
Most of these ships may be coastal vessels that operate in the area of the Red Sea or the Horn of Africa. Al Qaeda has been known to raise money by arms smuggling and the modern version of human slavery: "There were ships associated with bin Laden's organization [that moved] weapons, and also people," a Defense official knowledgeable in the area also notes.
Other officials confirm that US intelligence believes Al Qaeda controls at least 15 ships. Representative Bell says he's gravely concerned about port security. He represents Houston, which has an inland port with many lightly defended petrochemical plants near the water. "If one of those is bombed, and those toxic chemicals are released into the atmosphere - with that much exposed coastline the threat becomes very apparent," he says.
Since Sept. 11, much of the discussion about homeland maritime security has focused on shipping containers. Some 6 million of these big metal boxes arrive at US ports every year, and only a small fraction (3 percent) are subject to search.
The fact that thousands of pounds of illegal drugs enter the US via such containers highlights the permeability of this system. "Absent intelligence about the fact that something may be awry in a particular shipment, the chance of material getting through is very, very good," says Graham Allison, director of Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, which is holding a seminar on this subject Thursday.
But transshipment of bombs or other dangerous material is only one way ships might be used as weapons. The vessel itself could be turned into a bomb. Blowing up a ship near the inner harbors of cities built around ports, such as Baltimore, Boston, or Charleston, S.C., could cause profound physical and psychological shock. "To some extent [ships] can be the equivalent of that airliner flying into the World Trade Center," says Dr. Flynn.
Or a ship could be used to ram a critical bridge abutment in, say, Tampa, hampering the delivery of oil products. Another could be scuttled outside Norfolk, marooning Navy ships in port.
Last week's "Impending Storm" exercise was one of a series of such events that take place at the National Defense University in Washington. Its purpose was to help senior government and military officials understand what might happen after a ship-related terror attack, and to develop responses.
The exercise began with reports of a major oil spill in Houston. Participants didn't know if it was accidental or terror-related. Then, as they wrestled with whether to close the port or tighten security, the scenario expanded to include an explosion in a channel near Charleston, as well as other unspecified plots.
Participants had to worry about the economic impact of port closures as well as security. One lesson to emerge: lengthy closures could hamper the military's ability to project power. "Port security is not just homeland security. It is national security," says Col. Jim Haas, director of the Defense Secretary's Strategic Policy Forum.
www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2003 The Christian Science Monitor.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0515/p02s02-usgn.html
OK, it's beginning to sink in. The DPW deal is a Karl Rove scheme to get Senators Schumer and Clinton to endorse racial profiling. (http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/michellemalkin/2006/02/22/187387.html)
If you don't like the DPW ports deal, Blame Tom Daschle. (http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=4515)
al-Canine
02-22-2006, 11:53 AM
If you don't like the DPW ports deal, Blame Tom Daschle. (http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=4515)
Wow, good posts, NYer. :)
al-Canine
02-22-2006, 12:08 PM
:food_03:
President Bush was unaware of the pending sale of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports to a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates until the deal already had been approved by his administration, the White House said Wednesday.
Defending the deal anew, the administration also said that it should have briefed Congress sooner about the transaction, which has triggered a major political backlash among both Republicans and Democrats....
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/26-02222006-616611.html
United Arab Emirates: The Al Qaeda Perspective (http://www.ctc.usma.edu/aq/AFGP-2002-603856-Trans.pdf)
Via Dan Darling on Rantburg
In the Name of Allah the Most Compassionate and Merciful
Number (blank) Date 14/ May/June/2002
Al-Jihad Qaida’s [TC: Qaida: also means base in Arabic]
{Get the idolaters out of Arab Island} [TC: Gulf Countries]
To: Officials in the United Arab Emirates and especially the two emirates of Abu-Dhabi and Dubai:
We have come to know definitely that the Emirate country is committing acts of injustice against the striving youth of the Emirates and others who sympathize with us in order to appease the Americans’ wishes which include: spying, persecution, and detainments. The United Emirates authorities have recently detained a number of Mujahideen and handed them over to suppressive organizations in their country in addition to having a number of them still in its custody. Undoubtedly, these practices bring the country into a fighting ring in which it cannot endure or escape from its consequences especially since the Emirates’ social composition is the most productive, and very explosive.
You are well aware that we have infiltrated your security, censorship, and monetary agencies along with other agencies that should not be mentioned. Therefore, we warn of the continuation of practicing such policies, which do not serve your interests and will only cost you many problems that will place you in an embarrassing state before your citizens. In addition, it will prove your agencies’ immobility and failure. Also, we are confident that you are fully aware that your agencies will not get to the same high level of your American Lords. Furthermore, your intelligence will not be cleverer than theirs, and your censorship capabilities are not worth much against what they have reached. In spite of all this Allah has granted us success to get even with them and harm them.
However, you are an easier target than them; your homeland is exposed to us. There are many vital interests that will hurt you if we decided to harm them, especially, since you rely on shameless tourism in your economical income!! Finally, our policies are not to operate in your homeland and/or tamper with your security because we are occupied with others which we consider are enemies of this nation. If you compel us to do so, we are prepared to postpone our program for a short period and allocate some time for you.
Therefore, we ask you to release all the Mujahideen detainees since September incidents and anyone who was detained and suspected of having a connection with these incidents; otherwise, we will be compelled, with no regret, to change our policies towards you.
Al-Jihad Qaida Organization
al-Canine
02-22-2006, 01:06 PM
You are well aware that we have infiltrated your security, censorship, and monetary agencies along with other agencies that should not be mentioned.
:add08:
From TomGuy on freerepublic.com, here's a list of those for and against:
A running updated list of those for and those against UAE running US ports
AGAINST
New York Gov. George Pataki (R)
Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich (R) [Wants more info]
Baltimore Mayor, Martin J. O'Malley (D)
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell
Sean Hannity
Mark Levin
Michael Savage
Senator Chuck Schumer (D)
Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist
Michelle Malkin
Debbie Schlussel
Rep. Peter King (R)
Rep. Curt Weldon (R)
Senator Tom Coburn (R)
Senator Hillary Clinton (D)
Frank Gaffney, Jr
House Speaker Denis Hastert (R)
NJ Governor Jon Corzine (D)
Laura Ingraham
Bill Bennett
Rep Mark Foley (R)
Senator Barbara Boxer (D)
Joe Scarborough
Senator Norm Coleman (R) [To hold hearings next month]
Rep. Vito Fossella (R)
Jay D. Homnick, The American Prowler
James Lileks
Senator Robert Menendez (D)
Senator Lindsay Graham (R)
Joseph Farah
Senator Rick Santorum (R)
NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg (R)
NYPost.com
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D)
Senator Susan Collins (R)
Rep. Jane Harman (D)
Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid
NY Daily News
Neal Boortz
Hugh Hewitt
FOR
President George W. Bush (R)
and Bush Admin Personnel: Rumsfeld, Chertoff, Mineta, Alberto Gonzalez, [probable] Rice, Cheney
Former President Jimmy Carter (D)
Tony Snow
Rush Limbaugh
AJ Strata
Blogs for Bush
Sea2Sea
FL Governor Jeb Bush (R)
Senator John McCain (R)
Tom Ridge
Dan Bartlett
Dick Meyer, CBS News
Edward "Ted" H. Bilkey, Chief operating officer, Dubai Ports World
former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle
former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
Bill Kristol
Senator Joe Lieberman
Why do I not find this reassuring? (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060222/ts_nm/security_ports_intelligence_dc;_ylt=AoPdMGpC.Je6cC UyRU9XraFg.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA4b3FrcXQ0BHNlYwMxNjkz)
U.S. intelligence agencies scrutinized a deal to allow a state-owned Dubai company to manage major U.S. ports and found no security concerns, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said on Wednesday.
al-Canine
02-22-2006, 07:08 PM
Ports of Politics
How to sound like a hawk without being one.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is the latest Republican to broadcast his "independence" from President Bush on homeland security, yesterday joining Senator Lindsey Graham, Representative Peter King and numerous state politicians in calling on the Administration to stop a deal that would allow a United Arab Emirates company to manage six major U.S. ports.
The Democrats are also piling on, and we'll speak to that in a moment, but this behavior of Republicans strikes us as peculiar coming from people who claim to support the war on terror. Mr. Graham told Fox News that the Administration's decision allowing the state-owned Dubai Ports World to run commercial operations at U.S. ports was "tone deaf politically." The voluble Senator said this is no time "to outsource major port security to a foreign-based company" and that "most Americans are scratching their heads wondering, 'Why this company, from this region, now?' "
Some of us are scratching our heads all right, but we're wondering why Mr. Graham and others believe Dubai Ports World has been insufficiently vetted for the task at hand. So far, none of the critics have provided any evidence that the Administration hasn't done its due diligence. The deal has been blessed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a multiagency panel that includes representatives from the departments of Treasury, Defense and Homeland Security.
Yes, some of the 9/11 hijackers were UAE citizens. But then the London subway bombings last year were perpetrated by citizens of Britain, home to the company (P&O) that currently manages the ports that Dubai Ports World would take over. Which tells us three things: First, this work is already being outsourced to "a foreign-based company"; second, discriminating against a Mideast company offers no security guarantees because attacks are sometimes homegrown; and third, Mr. Graham likes to talk first and ask questions later.
Besides, the notion that the Bush Administration is farming out port "security" to hostile Arab nations is alarmist nonsense. Dubai Ports World would be managing the commercial activities of these U.S. ports, not securing them. There's a difference. Port security falls to Coast Guard and U.S. Customs officials. "Nothing changes with respect to security under the contract," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday. "The Coast Guard is in charge of security, not the corporation."
In a telephone interview yesterday, Kristie Clemens of U.S. Customs and Border Protection elaborated that "Customs and Border Protection has the sole responsibility for the cargo processing and cargo security, incoming and outgoing. The port authority sets the guidelines for the entire port, and port operators have to follow those guidelines." Again, nothing in the pending deal would affect that arrangement.
The timing of this sudden uproar is also a tad suspicious. A bidding war for the British-owned P&O has been going on since last autumn, and the P&O board accepted Dubai's latest offer last month. The story only blew up last week, as a Florida firm that is a partner with P&O in Miami, Continental Stevedoring and Terminals Inc., filed a suit to block the purchase. Miami's mayor also sent a letter of protest to Mr. Bush. It wouldn't be the first time if certain politicians were acting here on behalf of private American commercial interests.
Critics also forget, or conveniently ignore, that the UAE government has been among the most helpful Arab countries in the war on terror. It was one of the first countries to join the U.S. container security initiative, which seeks to inspect cargo in foreign ports. The UAE has assisted in training security forces in Iraq, and at home it has worked hard to stem terrorist financing and WMD proliferation. UAE leaders are as much an al Qaeda target as Tony Blair.
As for the Democrats, we suppose this is a two-fer: They have a rare opportunity to get to the right of the GOP on national security, and they can play to their union, anti-foreign investment base as well. At a news conference in front of New York harbor, Senator Chuck Schumer said allowing the Arab company to manage ports "is a homeland security accident waiting to happen." Hillary Clinton is also along for this political ride.
So the same Democrats who lecture that the war on terror is really a battle for "hearts and minds" now apparently favor bald discrimination against even friendly Arabs investing in the U.S.? Guantanamo must be closed because it's terrible PR, wiretapping al Qaeda in the U.S. is illegal, and the U.S. needs to withdraw from Iraq, but these Democratic superhawks simply will not allow Arabs to be put in charge of American longshoremen. That's all sure to play well on al Jazeera.
Yesterday Mr. Bush defended his decision to allow the investment to go ahead, and he threatened what would be his first veto if Congress tries to block it. We hope this time he means it.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007999
Klaus
02-22-2006, 11:36 PM
Bush threatens to VETO any bill to stop this transaction...
and the ONLY alternative is KBR.
Complete lunacy.
al-Canine
02-23-2006, 10:59 AM
Complete lunacy.
Breaking, on CNN...
al-Canine
02-23-2006, 11:00 AM
:rolleyes:
Sister Toldjah makes the case in Favor of the Ports Deal (http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/2006/02/23/the-uae-port-deal-i-support-it/) And there's more at the links.
al-Canine
02-23-2006, 11:54 AM
Sister Toldjah makes the case in Favor of the Ports Deal (http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/2006/02/23/the-uae-port-deal-i-support-it/) And there's more at the links.
Excellent link, thanks!
The more I read, the stickier it gets, each "side" makes some very valid points. (for anyone becoming convinced that the deal should move forward though, read this... (http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27402) )
Sidenote II: I should also point out that the admin’s PR on this has been horrible - claiming that the people (including the President) who I believe should have known about this didn’t know does not exactly advance the argument that our ‘in the know’ folks in our gov’t are on top of issues involving our national security in a post 9-11 world.
This is absolutely true.
freeman
02-23-2006, 11:58 AM
The UAE, was "used as a financial and operational base by some of the 9/11 hijackers," was "an important transfer point for shipments of smuggled nuclear components bound for Iran, North Korea, and Libya," and was "one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government before the U.S. invasion toppled it."
SO lets give em a "special deal that doesn't require them to keep any records..
A nifty way for the neocons to finally get that nuke attack they so desperately desire
DPW Port Quagmire may cause Armageddon. (http://www.imao.us/archives/004896.html)
In Port Deal, Clinton Ships Passing in the Night? - Thursday, February 23, 2006 @ 6:03:24 PM
It appears that a number of people are already profiting from the sale of some operations management of U.S. ports. But it ain't the port guys.
Already, it has been established that former Sen. Bob Dole is, well, on the port dole. No surprise, then, that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is also apparently drawing a check (someone should ask her just when she began drawing a check on this deal, as it appears it was some time ago, according to some Senate sources we talked to this afternoon).
But most interesting is the gossip among some Democratic Senators, who can't figure out why their colleague, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, is so hot and bothered by the port deal, since they believe her husband, the former president, was consulted and received fees for said consulting on the port management sale.
http://www.spectator.org/blogger_comments.asp?BlogID=2021
In Port Deal, Clinton Ships Passing in the Night? - Thursday, February 23, 2006 @ 6:03:24 PM
It appears that a number of people are already profiting from the sale of some operations management of U.S. ports. But it ain't the port guys.
Already, it has been established that former Sen. Bob Dole is, well, on the port dole. No surprise, then, that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is also apparently drawing a check (someone should ask her just when she began drawing a check on this deal, as it appears it was some time ago, according to some Senate sources we talked to this afternoon).
But most interesting is the gossip among some Democratic Senators, who can't figure out why their colleague, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, is so hot and bothered by the port deal, since they believe her husband, the former president, was consulted and received fees for said consulting on the port management sale.
http://www.spectator.org/blogger_comments.asp?BlogID=2021
Madeline Albright is a principal in the Carlyle Group, so this isn't a surprise
When will people FINALLY start to understand that the Bush Family and the Clinton Family are simply two CRIME FAMILIES in the mother of all mafias??
Carlyle Group appears to be organization where all of the Dons meet to discuss their activities. This includes the American Dons (like GW Bush, Albright, etc), the Saudi princes and their Dons (like the Bin Ladens), the UK Dons (John Major, etc), and other smaller, lesser known families.
you think I'm joking or exaggerating... I'm not.
I'm fucking dead serious.
Madeline Albright is a principal in the Carlyle Group, so this isn't a surprise
Well, technically, Alice Albright ( Madeline Albright's daughter) is a principal in the Carlyle Group.
uchiuke123
02-24-2006, 05:54 PM
http://www.thecarlylegroup.com/eng/team/l4-team2038.html
uchiuke123
al-Canine
02-24-2006, 10:05 PM
Port problems said to dwarf latest fears
Security gaps are common, and not linked to who owns terminals
For people who have grown anxious about U.S. port security because a Dubai company may soon manage operations at six container terminals on the East Coast, Kim Petersen suggests that the real grounds for concern lie elsewhere -- such as the fence he saw at a West African port a few months ago.
The newly built fence was a source of pride to the port's officials, who wanted to show that they were protecting their facility against any terrorists seeking to sneak a bomb aboard a U.S.-bound container. But it was a 5 1/2 -foot-tall chain-link fence -- hardly sufficient for the task, said Petersen, president of SeaSecure, a maritime security firm in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
The tale illustrates a point emphasized by many people familiar with security operations at U.S. ports: Among all the reasons to fret about vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks, the nationality of the companies managing the terminals is one of the least worrisome.
"There are many, many problems that we face in maritime security -- and they're not the United Arab Emirates," Petersen said, referring to the Persian Gulf nation of which Dubai is a part.
Nonetheless, politicians from both parties continue to pelt the Bush administration with criticism for its decision to allow Dubai Ports World, a fast-growing business owed by the Dubai government, to buy Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., a British maritime firm that manages terminals in Baltimore, New Jersey, New Orleans and several other major ports. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing yesterday, lawmakers acknowledged that the UAE has become an important U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf region but repeatedly cited the UAE's role in recognizing the Taliban before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and the lax supervision of its banking system that allowed some of the hijackers to finance their plans.
But such points bypass some crucial questions: What do the companies managing U.S. terminals -- most of which are owned by Asian and European shipping giants -- do that is so important to protecting against terrorist attacks? And how much difference would it make if Dubai Ports World joined their ranks?
Administration officials have asserted in recent days that security at U.S. ports is the responsibility of the Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, with the terminal operators responsible for little more than transferring containers from ships to railroad cars and trucks.
That overstates the role government agencies play. "They've been saying that customs and the Coast Guard are in charge of security; yes, they're in charge, but they're not usually present," said Carl Bentzel, a former congressional aide who helped write the 2002 act regulating port security.
The private terminal operators are almost always responsible for guarding the area around their facilities, although they must submit their security plans to the Coast Guard, which monitors and inspects them. In some cases, the companies X-ray incoming containers to see whether the contents appear to match the manifest, although customs agents are solely responsible for "intrusive" inspections -- that is, opening containers and examining the cargo. That procedure is performed on about 5 percent of containers entering the United States.
‘A problem for everybody’
The security personnel employed by the terminal companies vary from port to port, but according to several companies, the guards are often supplied by local private security firms.
"The lowest-paying jobs on the waterfront are security people," said Stephen E. Flynn, a ports expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. "But is that a problem for foreign ownership? No. It's a problem for everybody."
Shifting ownership from Britain's P&O to Dubai Ports World would not affect those arrangements at the terminals in question, company officials said. Consider, for example, the situation at the Philadelphia port, where Dubai Ports World would obtain 50 percent control over a local outfit that runs one terminal out of eight leased from the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority.
Robert Palaima, who runs the local company, said yesterday that he hires guards from a union that provides security officers and police guards under a security plan approved by the Coast Guard, which carried out a full-day inspection this week.
Cargo loading and unloading is done by work crews supplied by the International Longshoremen's Association, which Palaima described as "the most patriotic of unions." And there would be no changes in the workforce even if the Dubai Ports World takeover goes through, he said, adding: "I am sick and tired of all this uproar. We're patriots and nothing will change."
‘Abysmal job’
Much more serious, in the view of Petersen and other experts, are gaps in security that have nothing to do with the Dubai takeover.
"We've spent barely $700 million in federal grants to U.S. ports for security, compared with almost $20 billion for aviation security," Petersen said. "And most important, we are doing an abysmal job in assisting ports in the developing world in improving security to even minimal acceptable standards."
Since 2001, Washington has arranged for customs officials to work in 42 foreign ports with rights to inspect containers before they head for U.S. shores; Dubai was the first in its region. But that covers only 80 percent of the containers entering the United States.
"If you're an al-Qaeda operative, you're going to send a bomb from a developing country where you know those safeguards don't exist," Petersen said. "That's the key flaw. We should be investing now in the countries that pose a real threat to our national security, with more security grants. But many of these ports don't even have adequate fencing or lighting."
The Washington Post (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11531152/)
Foreign firms operate cargo terminals at West Coast ports. (http://www.bakersfield.com/state_wire/story/5963975p-5958120c.html)
An Arab company's potential takeover of some marine terminals at six major ports on the East Coast has raised questions about foreign operations at seaport facilities.
KW Associates, Realtors
Such arrangements have been commonplace at West Coast ports for years.
Most of the cargo that enters the country comes through huge ports in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland and the Seattle-Tacoma area of Washington.
Each has marine terminals operated by foreign shipping lines - many from Europe and Asia.
"On the West Coast, almost all the ports have their terminals operated by foreign companies," said Ivan Eland, senior fellow at The Independent Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization based in Oakland.
About half of the port terminals on the East Coast are managed by companies based overseas, he added.
US Intel Agencies Backed DPW Deal. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/24/AR2006022401810.html)
Reviews by U.S. intelligence agencies supported Dubai Ports World's purchase of the British company running terminals at six American seaports, and the assessments were made available to the Treasury Department-run interagency committee that approved the deal, according to senior administration officials.
The intelligence studies were coordinated by the Intelligence Community Acquisition Risk Center, a new organization under the office of the Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte, said one official. The center normally does broad threat analyses of foreign commercial entities that seek to do business with U.S. intelligence agencies.
This might be a good reason for extreme caution ...
OTH This (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PORTS_SECURITY?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-02-25-10-37-13) might be a favorable indicator ...
al-Canine
02-26-2006, 08:57 AM
Op-Ed Columnist
The Arabs Are Coming!
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Let's be blunt: this fuss about ports is really about Arabs.
Port terminals have been managed, without alarm, by companies from Britain, China, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan. So let's look at the arguments of those who believe we should discriminate against Arabs. ...
Look, Kristof, if this is discrimination against Arabs, that's because it was Arabs who attacked us on 9/11 and still threaten us today. If Singaporeans were plotting to set off nuclear explosions in American cities, then we'd scrutinize them, too.
Even if you believe in racial profiling, you have to look beyond the profile. Senators talk about Dubai in dark tones that suggest they've never been there. Dubai is the Disneyland of the Arab world — it's the place people go to relax, to shop, to drink. It is staunchly pro-American and pro-business, and its vision of the Arab future is absolutely the opposite of Osama bin Laden's. If we want to encourage Arab modernization, we should be approving this deal — not engaging in quasi-racist scaremongering.
Critics of the deal seem to suggest that swarthy men in black turbans are going to be arriving to provide port "security" in Newark. But Dubai Ports World is run mostly by Western executives, under an American chief operating officer. Nothing is going to change on the ground in Newark.
That's easy for a columnist to say; by this time tomorrow, your words will be forgotten at the bottom of the bird cage. But you can't be sure of what will happen in Dubai in 10 years, and this is about ports, the weak link in our homeland security.
Suppose you were Osama bin Laden and wanted to set off a nuclear weapon or a "dirty bomb" in front of the U.S. Capitol. First you would bribe Russians with access to loosely secured nuclear materials.
Then you would ship them to the U.S. — but the key step would occur in the foreign port: hiding the materials in the shipping container of a well-known and trusted exporter. If the container were shipped out of Rotterdam and seemed to contain Lego toys, for example, U.S. customs officials (who are now also based abroad) might not bother to examine it.
So even if agents of Al Qaeda infiltrate Dubai Ports World, and some manage to get U.S. visas and be stationed in Newark, it's not clear that they could help the plot.
So you're claiming that there are no security implications about a company from Dubai running American port terminals?
Sure, there are "implications," but they are manageable. And there are also implications about rejecting and scorning a modernizing ally like the United Arab Emirates — that would be a gift to Qaeda propagandists.
The reality is that ports aren't the only investment with security implications, and all countries wrestle with such concerns. China imported American telephone switches and discovered that the U.S. could eavesdrop more easily on Chinese officials; the Chinese imported U.S. planes, and the U.S. installed sophisticated bugs on the Chinese version of Air Force One.
So every country accepts trade-offs. We admit European tourists without visas, even though terrorists may slip in as well. But since 9/11 there has been a nativist, Know-Nothing streak in politics; a year ago it blocked China's deal to acquire Unocal, and today it rages at the Dubai ports deal.
Secretary of State Cordell Hull used to say that "when goods do not cross borders, armies do." If we want to promote global markets, as an avenue to peace, we have to practice what we preach.
Look, 9/11 showed that you can't be blasé about national security.
But paranoia doesn't work so well, either — it has led us to Iraq, Guantánamo and domestic N.S.A. wiretaps. It was counterproductive for Republicans to get so hysterical about national security that they justified locking up hundreds of Muslims after 9/11. And it's just as wrong for Democrats to get hysterical today.
If Democrats want to improve national security, they can tackle it in a thousand ways. The biggest vulnerabilities in our ports could be addressed by increasing customs inspections abroad, by adding radiation detectors, by examining more containers or by making containers tamper-proof. And if the aim is to reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism, then how about more support for the Nunn-Lugar program to secure Russian nuclear materials?
Democrats have so many legitimate reasons to criticize President Bush — from ruining our nation's finances to despoiling American wilderness — that it's painful to see them scaremongering in just the way that Mr. Bush himself has.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/opinion/26kristof.html?hp
Thank You for Shipping Emirates Sky Cargo (http://varifrank.com/archives/2006/02/thank_you_for_f_1.php)
While the entire US political-wonk class is frothing out the mouth over the sale of "port dock concessions to the United Arab Emirates" in a fashion I havent seen since the great "Flouride Wars of the 1950's", it turns out that "Emirates Air" and its subsidiary "Emirates Sky Cargo" has Passenger and Cargo Terminal Space at JFK.
That's John F. Kennedy INTERNATIONAL Airport, formerly known as "Idlewild"
That's in New York City, New York State.
You read that right.
Passenger Terminal Space and Cargo Terminal Space.
New...
York...
City...
John...
F...
Kennedy...
Cargo...
Terminal...
Space...
keith
02-27-2006, 05:01 PM
Actually, Emirates operates out of several US Hubs, as well as has ongoing relationships with several US Carriers, including Continental. Personally, I think its operations are much better than its US counterparts.
IBinFarteen
02-27-2006, 06:13 PM
Madeline Albright is a principal in the Carlyle Group, so this isn't a surprise
When will people FINALLY start to understand that the Bush Family and the Clinton Family are simply two CRIME FAMILIES in the mother of all mafias??
Carlyle Group appears to be organization where all of the Dons meet to discuss their activities. This includes the American Dons (like GW Bush, Albright, etc), the Saudi princes and their Dons (like the Bin Ladens), the UK Dons (John Major, etc), and other smaller, lesser known families.
you think I'm joking or exaggerating... I'm not.
I'm fucking dead serious.
When you pull your head out of your arse and educate yourself on what the MAFIA is and is not, then you won't be wasting time with this stupid comparison.
al-Canine
02-27-2006, 06:16 PM
Folks, let's please play nice in NEWS (Discussion). Thank you! :)
Klaus
02-27-2006, 11:02 PM
When you pull your head out of your arse and educate yourself on what the MAFIA is and is not, then you won't be wasting time with this stupid comparison.
It's the mother of ALL mafias. The Illuminati.
Bush, Cheney, Clinton, Kerry, are pawns....
"Made" pawns, but just pawns.
Re: DPW Deal - Here's some Frank Advice on Port Security. (http://www.imao.us/archives/004926.html)
al-Canine
03-01-2006, 01:19 PM
Re: DPW Deal - Here's some Frank Advice on Port Security. (http://www.imao.us/archives/004926.html)
on ferreting out extremist port employees:
"Muslim extremists hate cartoon depictions of the prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him), so put an unflattering comic about Mohammed on your door. If anyone tries to kill you over it, treat that person with suspicion." :add09:
http://www.opinioneditorials.com/guestcontributors/igraulich_20060302.html
March 02, 2006
Arab Port Whine
Irwin Graulich
Never trust men wearing long white sheets who hate Jews. Burning crosses and boycotting a tiny, democratic state called Israel are actually part of the same cancer. Not because it is Israel, but because "it is!"
Now those United Arab Emirates cry babies, who were born with a silver gas nozzle in their mouth, are crying like spoiled little children. They may not get the big US port toy deal. How sad.
They sent out the big guns including the Viagra man, Bob Dole. Every man has to make a living, but Bob please. Viagra is one thing; the hard ons in the Middle East are quite another. Secretary of State Albright just does not recognize evil when she sees it, evidence her bar mitzvah-like toastings with Kim Jong Il and her incredible failures in negotiating with that nation. It is no surprise that she has prostituted herself to this oil rich kingdom, attempting to show Congress what a wonderful, safe "John Emirate" she represents.
George W. Bush will never get my vote again, but he does not care what the public thinks. This deal is crazy. You want to talk scandal. Watergate and Lewinsky are small potatoes. On Portgate, every time you turn over another rock, more maggots come crawling out.
You have the Carlyle Group involved, a company where Bush Sr. was an advisor. They received an $8 billion investment last year from Dubai International Capital. Neal Bush, the president's brother has been in bed with the UAE for quite some time, including getting backing for Ignite!, his educational software company.
The only incompetent Bush brother, after being involved with the scandal ridden S & L's of the 80's, has been a guest of the Crown Prince of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, where he lectured on education. Has Neil checked the textbooks which speak quite disparagingly about Christians and Jews? That in itself could be part of the reason for their educational failures.
Wait, it gets worse. President Bush chose a Dubai Ports World executive, David Sanborn, to head the US Maritime Administration and the Secretary of the Treasury, John Snow, was former chairman of CSX Corporation, a company who sold their port operations to Dubai Ports World. Secretary Snow has gone on record to push this latest Dubai Ports World deal by claiming that "12 American agencies have ruled out security concerns." Hey John, that is what we call a "Snow job" where I come from in Brooklyn.
This is nuts. What is going on here? When Jimmy Carter backs your position, as he "lovingly" spoke of President Bush's port decision on CNN's Situation Room, you better be extremely careful. I never though I would say this but, "Thank God for Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton," who are looking very good.
However, it is the American people who are the heroes on this one. They will not permit such incompetence to coalesce. The government employees including Bush, Cheney, Snow and the various departments who investigated this transaction only see one thing. Could this deal impact the security at six major ports? Of course an educated answer to that question at present is "No." However, if all one sees is "port security" in this decision, then you have lost your American soul.
The United Arab Emirates continues to rip us off with high oil prices, claiming they are "our partners in fighting terrorism and are kindly (sic) allowing us to use their military bases." What a scam. If not for our planes and ships in the area, Iran would have done the exact same thing to the UAE that Saddam did to Kuwait. Just check out Iran's claims on that country. The UAE should be paying us for saving their pathetic little lives.
It was the UAE that served as an operational and financial base for the 9/11 hijackers and 2 of the hijackers were proud natives. Records show that the UAE has been a transfer point for shipments of smuggled nuclear components bound for Iran, North Korea and Libya. How about this little tidbit--only 5 years ago, the United Arab Emirates was one of only three countries in the world to recognize the Taliban government in Afghanistan.
And yet, there are intelligent people in the American administration who actually believe that this Middle Eastern autocracy should be involved with our port operations. What these intelligent fools never ask, but the American people understand, is why is this deal so important to an oil rich nation of greedy rulers? First of all, buying the London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. by the Emirates state-owned Dubai Ports World is no great moneymaker. There are much better ways to invest $6.8 billion, just ask Goldman Sachs.
What the President and every government worker down the line have failed to understand is the simple fact that buying access to our ports is part of the humiliation process that is being attempted against America. The Arab and Muslim world absolutely hates us, and the reasons have little to do with Iraq or even Israel.
This mature, old world sees America as a young, highly sexual, undisciplined child who needs to be reigned in due to bad values and sexual mores. However, Arab/Muslim children see MTV and Hollywood movies and want to be part of our incredibly successful, exciting, strong world, that is dominated by Western technology. Well, those chic (sic) Sheikh rulers want to show their people that they can control the Americans by buying them, whether it is through the acquisition of part interest in FOX News, or through this port deal.
It is also a way of showing that they really have not remained in the dark ages of hi-tech because they are part of American business operations; and ports--well, pretty important. However, what was the last hi-tech device coming out of the Arab/Muslim world--an abacus?
Modern sophisticated electrical devices are viewed as successful "weapons" of the West over this mysterious, religiously obsessed, ancient world. These devices are an affront to the fact that this region is nowhere in the technological revolution.
Therefore, the best solution is to buy companies that wind up taking over important operations, through which the Arab and Muslim world will get their prestige and honor. It is the only way they can fight the West. Buying General Motors is out of the question because of SEC regulations, thank God. After all, private industry is much wiser than government.
Make no mistake about it. This is not a business move. It is predominately an ego driven, military like move. Very sneaky. The United Arab Emirates comes from a world that is technologically retarded, so they purchase big companies to make them feel important and all grown up. However, there is a contradiction that must be worked out in this religious vacuum.
Technological innovation is seen as the Western devil's work, yet welcomed. The rationale is that the West can be defeated, in part, through purchasing them...but then you become part of them. And here comes the real danger which they fear most. When Arabs and Muslims actually move to America, they become Americans first...they become one of us.
As virtually every Arab and Muslim family I know says, " Don't bother me with that religious fanaticism crap. I am taking my family to Disneyworld!" That is absolutely Osama's greatest fear.
Irwin N. Graulich has been speaking and writing about morality, ethics, religion and politics since he was 16 years old. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, a child of Holocaust survivors. He is passionate about promoting goodness in people, as well as explaining the importance of America's founding Judeo-Christian values
Captain Ed notes the Clintons are redefining Triangulation. (http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/006439.php)
Bill Clinton, former US president, advised top officials from Dubai two weeks ago on how to address growing US concerns over the acquisition of five US container terminals by DP World. ...
It came even as his wife, Senator Hillary Clinton, was leading efforts to derail the deal.
Mr Clinton, who this week called the United Arab Emirates a “good ally to America”, advised Dubai’s leaders to propose a 45-day delay to allow for an intensive investigation of the acquisition, according to his spokesman. ...
Mr Clinton’s contact with Dubai on the issue underscores the relationship he has developed with the United Arab Emirates since leaving office. In 2002, he was paid $300,000 (€252,000) to address a summit in Dubai.
While Bill provided tactical advice to Dubai's leadership to help complete the deal, Hillary has actively campaigned to do the exact opposite. Here is the statement on Hillary's Senate web site outlining her stance on the DP World deal:
We thank you for joining the call of lawmakers who are gravely concerned about the Dubai Ports World deal. As you know, unless Congress acts, operations at six major U.S. ports, and other U.S. port facilities, will be turned over to Dubai Ports World, a company owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates, on March 2. This sale will create an unacceptable risk to the security of our ports. We therefore request that emergency legislation we are introducing to ban foreign governments from controlling operations at our ports be slated for immediate consideration when the Senate convenes on February 27. ...
This issue transcends philosophical posturing and partisan bickering – it is about our nation’s security.
Bill Clinton: Dubai Do!
Hillary Clinton: Dubai Don't!
Frank Sinatra: Dubai Dubai Doo!
Copyright 2006 U.P.I.
All Rights Reserved
UPI
March 3, 2006 Friday 9:27 AM EST
Armed Services chairman opposes port deal
WASHINGTON, March 3
A top Republican has declared opposition to allowing a Dubai government-owned company to assume control of operations at U.S. ports.
House Armed Services Committee Duncan Hunter said the United Arab Emirates has a "terrifying" record of allowing the transshipment of nuclear materials and weapons of mass destruction through its country to Pakistan, Iran and other countries.
The controversial deal will give Dubai Port World, Inc. control over P&O North America, a shipping and port terminal operator with a presence in 21 American ports on the East and Gulf Coast. P&O runs public port terminals -- where cargo is loaded and unloaded -- in at least six major U.S. ports.
The $6.8 billion takeover is now expected to be complete by next week, despite an ongoing 45-day security investigation by the U.S. government to address concerns about the company's ownership and possible vulnerability to terrorist infiltration.
The White House's Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States approved the deal in January without conducting the 45-day investigation required by law. White House officials said the investigation is only required if members of the committee raise national security concerns.
Hunter said that in 2003, despite U.S. protests, United Arab Emirates customs officials allowed 66 American high-speed electrical switches, which can be used for detonating nuclear weapons, to be sent to a Pakistani businessman with ties to the Pakistani military.
"Dubai can't be trusted with our critical infrastructure. United Arab Emirates officials have been instrumental in the transshipment of nuclear materials and weapons of mass destruction components," said Hunter. "To those who say my views smack of protectionism, I say: America is worth protecting."
al-Canine
03-03-2006, 10:32 PM
Bman, great post. There's more, too, in the Washington Times. (http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20060303-122020-2647r.htm)
The Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee yesterday said he'll push legislation that would not only kill a Dubai-owned company's bid to operate in U.S. ports, but would kick out any foreign-owned company that owns U.S. terminals or other key infrastructure. ...
... Many legislators have concerns with allowing a government in the United Arab Emirates, a country with ties to terror leader Osama bin Laden, to run terminals in U.S. ports. Mr. Hunter said those concerns are justified, noting that in 2003 -- despite U.S. protests -- United Arab Emirates customs officials allowed sixty-six American high-speed electrical switches, used for detonating nuclear weapons, to go to a Pakistani businessman with ties to the Pakistani military.
He also pointed to a report that 70 tons of heavy water, a component of nuclear reactors, were sent from China to India and Argentina via Dubai. ....
read more (http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20060303-122020-2647r.htm)
Dan Darling just pointed out on Rantburg that National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia operates marine terminals in Brooklyn, Baltimore and Newark. (http://www.nscsaamerica.com/marine_term.htm) As Dan puts it, "To go after one ( DPW) while ignoring the other is the equivalent of straining a gnat while swallowing a camel." Well put...
Here's NSCSA's company profile. (http://www.nscsaamerica.com/profile.htm)
Bman, great post. There's more, too, in the Washington Times. (http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20060303-122020-2647r.htm)
The Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee yesterday said he'll push legislation that would not only kill a Dubai-owned company's bid to operate in U.S. ports, but would kick out any foreign-owned company that owns U.S. terminals or other key infrastructure. ...
Excellent news!
That's the right approach. As NY'er points, out.. there are more fish our there besides the UAE
Like the Colonials in the 18th Century, we must rise up and drive these foreigners out of our ports.
Move over Portgate (http://www.drudgereport.com/flash3aa.htm)
Indianapolis International Airport, a facility that serves more than 8 million passengers every year, is operated by a foreign-owned company.
And the company has stated contractual obligations at the airport -- which include law enforcement!
Move over Portgate (http://www.drudgereport.com/flash3aa.htm)
Indianapolis International Airport, a facility that serves more than 8 million passengers every year, is operated by a foreign-owned company.
And the company has stated contractual obligations at the airport -- which include law enforcement!
Sounds to me like Hunter's proposed legislation is need.. ASAP
The Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee yesterday said he'll push legislation that would not only kill a Dubai-owned company's bid to operate in U.S. ports, but would kick out any foreign-owned company that owns U.S. terminals or other key infrastructure. ...
Could DPW be any worse than This? (http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1697607&page=1)
Tip of the Mets Cap to Instapundit ...
House Republicans vowed to defy President Bush's effort to have a Dubai company take over six major U.S. ports. But ABC News has learned about a port threat from within — a major security breach at the ports of New York and New Jersey.
The two ports handle millions of tons of cargo a year, with scores of cruise ships passing through annually. Truckers who transport much of the cargo are issued ID cards, which give them access to the ports' most sensitive areas.
ABC News has learned that the cards, given to thousands of truckers by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, were issued with virtually no background checks. The Department of Homeland Security recently investigated the New York and New Jersey ports, and found stunning gaps in security.
The new DHS report, obtained by ABC News, shows that of the 9,000 truckers checked, nearly half had evidence of criminal records. More than 500 held bogus driver's licenses, leaving officials unsure of their real identities.
And Reynolds points to this WSJ article highlighting more Port Insecurity. (http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114066502425280990-IFBIh4YOP3mIUsRjt4u_TYxAwyE_20070223.html?mod=blog s)
Breaking News (http://www.foxnews.com/)
Dubai company to give up stake in US ports.
UAE firm to transfer port operations to US entity. (http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/09/port.security/index.html)
"Because of the strong relationship between the United Arab Emirates and the United States and to preserve that relationship ... DP World will transfer fully the U.S. operations of P&O Operations North America to a United States entity," Edward H. Bilkey, DP World's chief operating officer, said in a statement.
The announcement did not specify which American company would be involved.
The New Protecionists. (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008069)
More broadly, U.S. economic and defense security are intertwined. Imagine the threat to American well being if investment capital were trying to flee the U.S. because it believed opportunities were better elsewhere. Meanwhile, the interdependence that comes with foreign investment also gives those investors a stake in both American success and security. Are the Gulf emirates more, or less, reliable as U.S. allies because they invest their petrodollars in American assets? We'd say more. And, of course, foreigners who invest in the U.S. also help finance the military that keeps us safe.
The Dubai episode has been a debacle of the first order, and while the Beltway is toting up winners and losers, the rest of the world is shaking its head and wondering what's going on. The world's largest economy and its ostensible political leader seems to be sneering at the very foreign investment that has been crucial to its prosperity. Let's hope it was a momentary hallucination, and not the start of a larger protectionist binge.
http://opinionjournal.com/editorial/rando03-10-06.jpg
Another term for this foreign investment is "insourcing." Foreign capital creates wealth and jobs here, rather than in India, China or Japan. Thanks to net foreign investment, about one-in-twelve American manufacturing workers are now employed by a foreign-owned firm. Toyota recently invested $800 million in a new plant in San Antonio that will employ 2,000 workers.
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