House GOP Leaders Line Up Against UAE Port Deal

[MonsterMark]

Brilliant stroke? You are delusional.

What's delusional? The deal will go thru, largely unchanged after the Left scores some national security brownie points. Bush and the US wind up with a closer working relationship with the UAE and I hope a few quid-pro-quos are thrown in for good measure.

Looks like a win-win to me.

I love to watch the racial profiling going on by the Left. The HEIGHT of hypocrisy in front of our own eyes. Can't trust ANY towel-head is what the Lefties are now saying.

 

[barry2952]

Funny, I didn't say that. Please show me where I did.

Show me where I've ever used a derogatory term about Muslims or Arabs.

You are the one that has used the terms many times. Pot calling the kettle black?

Hypocrite.

 

[MonsterMark]

I'm against the UAE deal btw.

I'm pro Bush but I believe it is up the the UAE to prove this deal has no US security issues.

I do believe it is a win-win in so far as we sell a lot of US assets to foreign nationals. Take a deep look into this deal and see how 1st raised objections to the deal. (hint...Repub). The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)=(Treasury Department) should not be in charge of oversight of these deals. The Pentagon should.

We'll see where this all goes.

 

[RRocket]

The fact is, liberals and the Democratic party ARE racists and are racially profiling this deal. The screaming and wailing came from the Left. Republicans have said, wait a second, let's make sure this is a safe deal. Democrats have come out screaming national security because every poll they have taken says they lose the next election unless they can convince the American people they are not the yellow-bellied sap-suckers everyone knows them to be.

Not true, Bryan...that's quite the blanket statement! I seem to recall some openly racist members of the Republican Party (Thurmond, anyone?) As I said, the only reason this topic piqued my interest was a right wing radio show I was listening to most callers (who support Bush) were against this. This was unusual to me since I have NEVER heard any dissent on the program before, as would be expected of a right wing show. But this time was different. Most of them used the terms "security" and "Arab" in the argument against this. I don't think using the term "racist" is correct. I think the American public has been conditioned by the current administration to think all most terrorism is from Arab nations. People today still think Iraq was involved with 9/11. I don't think it's a fair or accurate thing to say that democrats or liberals are racially biased against Arabs. I have heard an equal amount of this from both sides....

 

[barry2952]

Homeland Security Objected to Ports Deal

By TED BRIDIS
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Homeland Security Department objected at first to a United Arab Emirates company's taking over significant operations at six U.S. ports. It was the lone protest among members of the government committee that eventually approved the deal without dissent.

The department's early objections were settled later in the government's review of the $6.8 billion deal after Dubai-owned DP World agreed to a series of security restrictions.

The company indefinitely has postponed its takeover to give President Bush time to convince Congress that the deal does not pose any increased risks to the U.S. from terrorism.

Some lawmakers have pressed for a new and intensive review. Despite persistent criticism from Republicans and Democrats, the president has defended his administration's approval of the ports deal and threatened to veto any measures in Congress that would block it. Hearings are to continue this week.

A DP World executive said the company would agree to tougher security restrictions to win congressional support only if the same restrictions applied to all U.S. port operators. The company earlier had struck a more conciliatory stance, saying it would do whatever Bush asked to salvage the agreement.

``Security is everybody's business,'' senior vice president Michael Moore told The Associated Press. ``We're going to have a very open mind to legitimate concerns. But anything we can do, any way to improve security, should apply to everybody equally.''

The administration approved the ports deal on Jan. 17 after DP World agreed during secret negotiations to cooperate with law enforcement investigations in the future and make other concessions.

Some lawmakers have challenged the adequacy of a classified intelligence assessment crucial to assuring the administration that the deal was proper. The report was assembled during four weeks in November by analysts working for the director of national intelligence.

The report concluded that U.S. spy agencies were ``unable to locate any derogatory information on the company,'' according to a person familiar with the document. This person spoke only on condition of anonymity because the report was classified.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and others have complained that the intelligence report focused only on information the agencies collected about DP World and did not examine reported links between UAE government officials and al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.

The uproar over DP World has exposed how the government routinely approves deals involving national security without the input of senior administration officials or Congress.

President Bush, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and even Treasury Secretary John Snow, who oversees the government committee that approved the deal, all say they did not know about the purchase until after it was finalized. The work was done mostly by assistant secretaries.

Snow now says he may consider changes in the approval process so lawmakers are better alerted after such deals get the go-ahead.

Stewart Baker, a senior Homeland Security official, said he was the sole representative on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States who objected to the ports deal. Baker said he later changed his vote after DP World agreed to the security conditions. Other officials confirmed Baker's account.

``We were not prepared to sign off on the deal without the successful negotiation of the assurances,'' Baker told the AP.

Officials from the White House, CIA, departments of State, Treasury, Justices, and others looked for guidance from Homeland Security because it is responsible for seaports. ``We had the most obvious stake in the process,'' Baker said.

Baker acknowledged that a government audit of security practices at the U.S. ports in the takeover has not been completed as part of the deal. ``We had the authority to do an audit earlier,'' Baker said.

The audit will help evaluate DP World's security programs to stop smuggling and detect illegal shipments of nuclear materials at its seaport operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.

The administration privately disclosed the status of the security audit to senators during meetings about improving reviews of future business deals involving foreign buyers. Officials did not suggest the audit's earlier completion would have affected the deal's approval.

New Jersey's Democratic governor, who is suing to block the deal, said in his party's weekly radio address on Saturday that the administration failed to properly investigate the UAE's record on terrorism.

``We were told that the president didn't know about the sale until after it was approved. For many Americans, regardless of party, this lack of disciplined review is unacceptable,'' Jon Corzine said.

Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said there was no going back on the deal.

 

[barry2952]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Coast Guard warned that "intelligence gaps" prevented a broad assessment of any security risks posed by the takeover of some U.S. shipping terminals by a United Arab Emirates company, a Senate hearing revealed Monday.

Sen. Susan Collins, the chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, disclosed the Coast Guard report on DP World's impending purchase of P&O, the British-based operator of cargo terminals.

"There are many intelligence gaps concerning the potential for DPW or P&O assets to support terrorist operations that precludes an overall threat assessment of the potential merger," a Coast Guard report on the potential deal stated.

"The breadth of the intelligence gaps also infer potential unknown threats against a large number of potential vulnerabilities."

Critics have argued that the deal raises security concerns and requires further scrutiny, since DP World is a state-run venture of the UAE. The country was the home of two of the al Qaeda hijackers involved in the September 11, 2001, attacks, and money to fund the plot was passed through banks in Dubai.

Collins, a Maine Republican, questioned whether the Coast Guard's concerns had been addressed before an administration committee approved the DP World-P&O transaction, which has created a furor in Washington.

"These unclassified questions and the use of the word 'intelligence gaps' that preclude 'an overall threat assessment of the potential merger' and that it involves 'potential unknown threats against a large number of potential vulnerabilities,' that language is very troubling to me," Collins said.

The Coast Guard intelligence document, prepared in December, said the service was unable to answer questions about the security environment at the terminals affected; the backgrounds of workers at those terminals; and whether DP World or P&O were vulnerable to "foreign influence" on security matters.

But Clay Lowery, a Treasury Department official involved in approving the sale, told senators the Coast Guard's concerns "were addressed and resolved." He said they had become the basis for special "assurances" DP World provided the U.S. government as part of the deal.

Rear Adm. Thomas Gilmore, the Coast Guard officer in charge of marine safety and security, said he would have to disclose classified information to respond to questioning.

"Any concerns we had were addressed in the assurances letter," Gilmore said before the committee went into a closed session.

The $6.85 billion acquisition of P&O's parent company would place DP World in charge of cargo handling at some terminals in five large U.S. ports -- Baltimore, Maryland; Newark, New Jersey; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Miami, Florida; and New Orleans, Louisiana -- and a New York cruise-ship terminal.

The deal, scheduled to close Thursday, was approved in January by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an administration group led by the Treasury Department.

But criticism of the agreement escalated last week, when the Republican leaders in both houses of Congress and numerous Democratic lawmakers called for the merger to be delayed for further review.

DP World announced over the weekend that it would seek an additional 45-day review of the plan because of the outcry, and would not take control of P&O's port operations until the review is complete.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee then said he would recommend waiting until the additional 45 days were up "before deciding on any legislative steps."

Lawsuits in New Jersey and Florida have challenged the merger, and Democratic senators from New York and New Jersey have introduced a bill that would bar overseas companies from controlling American port operations.

Critics have questioned why the Bush administration signed off on the merger without a more extensive review of its national-security implications. The White House has tried to reassure lawmakers and the public that the Coast Guard and Customs officers would retain control of security.

"One thing we will never do is outsource control of our ports or security at our ports to any entity," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Monday. "That will remain under the charge of our Customs and Border Protection and the Coast Guard."

President Bush has threatened to veto any legislation that blocks the transaction and has accused critics of subjecting an Arab-owned company to a higher standard than other international firms. The UAE is a key American ally in the Persian Gulf, and Bush warned that rejecting the deal could undercut Arab cooperation on antiterrorist efforts.

But Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Republican, said Monday that critics of the deal have taken years of administration warnings about the threat of terrorism to heart.

"They try to scare people and they've been scaring them with these terrorist tactics, and then all at once they're surprised at the public reaction to something that was secretly handled," said Murtha, an outspoken critic of the administration's handling of the war in Iraq.

"My initial reaction would be against it since what I heard about the Coast Guard, but we have to take a good look at it," he said.

 

[MonsterMark]

But Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Republican, said Monday that critics of the deal have taken years of administration warnings about the threat of terrorism to heart.

{snip}

"My initial reaction would be against it since what I heard about the Coast Guard, but we have to take a good look at it," he said.

Ist. CNN, get things right please. Murtha is a Democrat.

2nd. Notice how everybody that is against the deal seem to have to leave the door open. More lefty waffling. They are pretty good at it.

3rd. More terrorists have come from Britain than the UAE but nobody seems to have had a problem with the Brits running the ports.

 

[MonsterMark]

Even some liberals get it. This coming from the WAPO of all places.


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/395244p-335106c.html

Pay attention: W right on Dubai


There are times when President Bush sorely disappoints. Just when you might expect him to issue a malapropistic explanation, pander to his base or simply not have a clue about what he is talking about, he does something so right, so honest and, yes, so commendable, that - as Arthur Miller put it in "Death of a Salesman" - "attention must be paid." Pay attention to how he has refused to indulge anti-Arab sentiment over the Dubai ports deal.
Would that anyone could say the same about many of the deal's critics. Whatever their concerns may be, whatever their fears might be, they would not have had them, expressed them or have seen them in print had the middle name of the United Arab Emirates been something else. After all, no one goes nuts over Germany, the country where some of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists lived and attended school.

To overlook the xenophobic element in this controversy is to overlook the obvious. It is what propelled the squabble and what sustains it. Bush put his finger on it right away. "What I find interesting is that it's okay for a British company to manage some ports, but not okay for a company from a country that is a valuable ally in the war on terror," he said last week. "The UAE has been a valuable partner in fighting the war on terror." It is a long way from a terrorist haven.

Somewhere in the White House, a political operative must have slapped his head in consternation as Bush made that remark. The politic thing for a President with a dismal approval rating (about 40%) would have been to join with the critics, get ahead of the anti-Arab wave and announce that he, too, was concerned about the deal. Instead, the White House stuck to its guns.

That Bush has done this should come as no surprise. He refuses to pander to anti-immigration forces and, shortly after 9/11, if you will remember, he visited Washington's Islamic Center. He reassured American Muslims and the worldwide Islamic community that neither America nor its government was waging war on an entire people.

America has many friends in the Arab world. You can go to Saudi Arabia, for instance, and talk "American" at a dinner party - banter about the Redskins or California real estate prices or, of course, politics. The region is home to many people who have gone to school in the United States and admire it greatly. They are not the majority, by any means, but they are important and influential - and they are being slowly alienated by knee-jerk insults and brainless policies that reflect panic and prejudice.

The true security cost of the Dubai deal has already been inflicted.

Maybe because Bush is a Bush - son of a President who got to know many Arabs - or maybe because he just naturally recoils from prejudice, his initial stance on this controversy has been refreshingly admirable. Whatever the case, the President has done the right thing.

Attention must be paid.

 

[JohnnyBz00LS]

I listened to an interview a couple nights ago, can't remember which channel (FNC or MSNBC). It appears that giving control of these ports to DPW will have little or no effect on the actual likelihood of bombs or WMDs getting smuggled into the US via these ports. Only 1-2% of the containers are inspected by US customs anyway, and the handling of those containers will remain within US responsibility.

In other words, our back door is, and has been, wide-the-flock open for WMDs to be smuggled into the US via containers and handing control of these ports over to DPW/UAE can't possibly make it any worse for us. The problem / risk lies NOT w/ who operates the ports, it lies WITH our lame US customs and their lack of inspection of containers. While this is a VERY SAD statement about GW BuSh's committment to actually effecting border security against smuggling of WMDs, I tend to agree w/ GW that there is more to gain from this deal (strengthening bonds w/ UAE) and we have absolutely nothing to lose.

This is an odd situation, I actually agree w/ BuSh on this, while Brian is against him. What is this world coming to??

 

[MonsterMark]

This is an odd situation, I actually agree w/ BuSh on this, while Brian is against him. What is this world coming to??

IF you re-read what I said on the subject, I am not only against this deal, but also the ones that turned the LA port and the Panama canal over to Communist China. But, I also said this is a win-win deal for the US, therefore, it should go ahead. We need the access points the UAE offers with its strategic location, ports, and air bases as long as we remain reliant on MidEast oil.

People shouldn't be screaming about this UAE deal. What they should be screaming about is that we haven't invested whatever is necessary to inspect ALL containers coming into ANY U.S. port. On the flip side, reality is, we will never be able to stop a WMD attack, no matter how many containers are inspected, or even if all of them are, which is why we need to kill all the bad guys so they won't ever get a chance to meet their virgins.

 

[JohnnyBz00LS]

What they should be screaming about is that we haven't invested whatever is necessary to inspect ALL containers coming into ANY U.S. port.

And on that point, we do agree.