Free Republic

The Clintons pass in the night Written in conjunction with Eileen McGann Bill and Hillary Clinton are the first couple to appear simultaneously and independently on the national political stage. They are using their special circumstances as a convenient shield for one another, fulfilling, at once, Hillary’s dream of no accountability and Bill’s of being able to take both sides of an issue. Did Hillary know that Bill was pardoning the FALN terrorists to help her win Puerto Rican votes in New York? Oh, she was opposed to the pardon. Did Hillary find out that Bill was granting pardons to...

WASHINGTON - Lapses by private port operators, shipping lines or truck drivers could allow terrorists to smuggle weapons of mass destruction into the United States, according to a government review of security at American seaports. The $75 million, three-year study by the Homeland Security Department included inspections at a New Jersey cargo terminal involved in the dispute over a Dubai company's now-abandoned bid to take over significant operations at six major U.S. ports...

On a read-through from the deal price, the US business is valued at about £235m, or $400m. The US Treasury has agreed to assist DP World in divesting the business, giving it enough time to prevent a fire sale. Edward Bilkey, DP World's chief operating officer, said on Thursday the transfer would be carried out in an orderly fashion to ensure "DP World will not suffer economic loss." Potential buyers for all or part of the business include SSA Marine, the largest container terminals operator in the US; Eller, which tried to block the P&O deal; and private equity groups....

BOUNTIFUL - When Gregg Revell packed his bags for a trip to Pennsylvania last April, he had no idea how far he'd be traveling. Before the week was out, the 57-year-old suburban real estate agent and grandfather would be arrested, thrown into one of the country's most notorious jails, strip searched and inoculated against his will. The soft-spoken Utah native would be on his way to becoming a poster child for the National Rifle Association in a $3 million lawsuit. During a nearly five-day stay in a Newark, N.J., jail, he would meet a terrifying side of America that most...

The U.S. House of Representatives will forge ahead with a vote on blocking an Arab-owned company from managing U.S. ports, to ensure the firm sheds its U.S. holdings as promised, a leadership spokesman said on Friday. The Republican-run House's refusal to back away from the showdown vote was another blow to President George W. Bush, who suffered a stinging defeat on Thursday when Dubai Ports World said it intended to back out of the deal his administration had approved. Reverberations from the political earthquake continued on Friday. The United Arab Emirates broke off talks on a free trade pact with...

A Dubai-based company abandoned its effort to take over some operations at six major U.S. seaports, including the Port of Miami-Dade, after Congress made clear it would block the deal. WASHINGTON - With President Bush unable to contain a Republican congressional rebellion, a company owned by the United Arab Emirates vowed Thursday to turn over its just-acquired operations at six major U.S. port terminals, including the Port of Miami-Dade, to an American entity. One possible buyer: Fort Lauderdale-based Eller & Co., which has had a longtime role in operating the Port of Miami-Dade. The surprise move came after congressional leaders...

President Bush said Friday he was troubled by the political storm that forced the reversal of a deal allowing a company in Dubai to take over take over operations of six American ports, saying it sent a bad message to U.S. allies in the Middle East. Bush said the United States needs moderate allies in the Arab world, like the United Arab Emirates, to win the global war on terrorism. The president said he had been satisfied that security would be sound at the ports if the Dubai deal had taken effect. "Nevertheless, Congress was still very much opposed to...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and United Arab Emirates have postponed free trade talks set for next week, the U.S. Trade Representative's office said on Friday. The announcement came one day after state-owned Dubai Ports World, facing intense U.S. political opposition, said it would sell recently acquired U.S. assets to an American entity. "The U.S. and UAE are strongly committed to making progress on our FTA negotiations. In order to get an agreement that both sides can successfully implement, we need additional time to prepare for the next round of negotiations," Neena Moorjani, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade...

WASHINGTON - A Dubai-owned company will control 23 American ports - not six - as a result of the deal approved by a Bush administration panel in January. The takeover of the British company Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. involves almost every major Atlantic seaport from Portland, Maine, to Miami and along the entire Gulf Coast, according to an attorney fighting the deal. The list includes Port Arthur and Beaumont, Texas, which have handled about 40 percent of the war materiel the Army has shipped to combat theaters in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also includes Norfolk, Va., home to...

MUMBAI: Going to the airport? Get ready to be psycho-profiled . Wary of increasing terror attacks , the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), in-charge of security at the Mumbai airport and 53 other airports in the country, has begun psycho-profiling all passengers to be able to correctly pin down potential hijackers, terrorists, gangsters, smugglers and drug-peddlers . Lessons in psycho-profiling , a method of examining psychological behaviour patterns by way of observation and questioning, were imparted to the CISF early this year by officials of the Israel national airline El Al, one of the most security-conscious airlines in the world...

  THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY:HOW DECADES OF CLINTON DOUBLE-DEALING COMPROMISED OUR NATIONAL SECURITY by Mia T, March 8, 2006     ld habits die hard. Bill and hillary and their fixers in the press and DC are up to their old tricks.1 The clintons trade our national security for their power and treasure2 while old media and the DC establishment--pre-9/11, 20th-century relics all--do nothing.3 But this time the betrayal is happening in real time, right before our very eyes. Aided and abetted by the usual useful-idiot suspects in the press, allowed to operate with impunity by a Congress cowered...

Dubai Ports Worls to divest itself of all American interests

Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, took an unusual step for a military leader Thursday, criticizing opposition to the attempted purchase of some U.S. port operations by a Dubai-owned company, calling it "Arab and Muslim bashing." Abizaid, a grandson of Lebanese immigrants, and other military officials were asked about DP World's withdrawal from the deal as they left a briefing of lawmakers on Capitol Hill. He said the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part, is vital to the military's stake in the Persian Gulf region. The Navy heavily uses the port there....

PORTSMOUTH — Entering the Virginia Port Authority’s three marine cargo terminals soon will involve a technology similar to the Smart Tag toll collection system. Officials say the new system will better secure the port. E ven with such improvements, many in the maritime industry think the nation’s 360 seaports remain unnecessarily vulnerable to attack because a national transportation worker identification card still has not been developed by the federal government, despite four years of efforts .When the entry system debuts in about a month at Portsmouth Marine Terminal, truck drivers will proceed to an unmanned entry gate. There they will...

HOUSE REPUBLICANS SEND A MESSAGE By Michelle Malkin   ·   March 08, 2006 10:00 PM This is a wake-up call to the White House. In an election-year repudiation of President Bush, a House panel dominated by Republicans voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to block a Dubai-owned firm from taking control of some U.S port operations. By 62-2, the Appropriations Committee voted to bar DP World, run by the government of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, from holding leases or contracts at U.S. ports. Bush has promised to veto any such measure passed by Congress, but there is widespread public opposition to the...

Whats with the timing on this new bill? I thought Dubai Ports World agreed to an open, visible 45 day investigation on wether they should be in charge of some operations at U.S. ports. Thats what politicians agreed to, and now theyre preparing to introduce a bill that would kill the deal, with billions in aid for Iraq, the Gluf Coast, Afghanistan, etc. also attached to it. This way Bush cant veto it without becoming the bad guy. So why are these politicians unwilling to even wait for the investigation to conclude before they pull this? Its as if I...

WASHINGTON – In a congressional election-year repudiation of President Bush, a House panel dominated by Republicans voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to block a Dubai-owned firm from taking control of some U.S port operations. Democrats clamored for a vote in the Senate, too. By 62-2, the House Appropriations Committee voted to bar DP World, run by the government of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, from holding leases or contracts at U.S. ports. The landslide vote was the strongest signal yet that more than three weeks of White House efforts to stunt congressional opposition to the deal have not been successful. Bush...

House Appropiations Committe voted to block Dubai deal

:Dubya's last stand By Joseph Farah, Posted: March 8, 2006 WorldNetDaily.com Lame duck George W. Bush obviously has no care for how his party performs in the 2008 presidential election. But he has a little more time to consider his own fate in the 2006 mid-term congressional elections. Oh, it won't make any difference whether Republicans or Democrats are elected this fall to the rest of us. After all, with Republicans in charge of Congress and the White House for the last six years, spending has increased way beyond anything we imagined during President Clinton's eight years in office. Republicans...

The Administration's effort to build support for the Dubai Ports World transaction has had no measurable impact in the court of public opinion. Just 19% of Americans now believe Dubai Ports World should be allowed to purchase operating rights to several U.S. ports. Two weeks ago, that figure was 17% (see crosstabs). From a political perspective, the President's national security credentials have not rebounded. Forty-one percent (41%) of Americans now trust Democrats in Congress more than the President on national security issues. Forty percent (40%) have more trust in the President. It is important to note that the question about...

Given her husband's insatiable ego and unquenchable quest for public affection, presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton will face some hard choices during her campaign, which has already begun. I'm not talking about her predicament of always being cast in Bill's shadow and thus having a difficult time establishing her own identity. I think she's already done that, even if it is somewhat of a moving target, depending on what persona she believes is expedient at the time. Indeed Bill wants Hillary to be president, if for no other reason than in his mind it will validate him, not to mention that...

In Washington today, 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, with scores of cruise ships passing through each year. Truckers who transport much of the cargo are issued ID cards, which give them access to all areas of the port. ABC News has learned that the cards, given to thousands of truckers by the...

London, Mar. 07 – A Dubai-based company owned by the Iranian government has been used by Iran’s Ministry of Defence to procure a key component needed for production of nuclear bombs, Iran Focus has learnt. Sources inside the Iranian government have informed Iran Focus that the Dubai-based Gulf Resources Development Corporation (GRDC) has smuggled sizeable quantities of a type of graphite known as ceramic matrix composite (CMC) from China to Iran. Ceramic matrix composite is used in the construction of nuclear bombs and preservation of highly enriched uranium. Without CMC insulation, highly enriched uranium cannot be placed in a bomb...

A booster of the UAE port deal, Clinton is a paid senior adviser to a company known as Yucaipa, which recently set up a relationship with a group called the Yucaipa investment group called DIGL, Morris said on The O'Reilly Factor. “DIGL Inc. is in charge of managing the investments of the crown prince of Dubai throughout the world. Bill Clinton is paid by Yucaipa a percentage of the profits it makes, and Yucaipa said its profits have exceeded 40 percent in recent years.”

LONDON — The controversial takeover of British shipping company P&O by Dubai's state-owned DP World received the green light today when Britain's Court of Appeal dismissed a Miami firm's objection to the deal. The Court of Appeal declined to hear an appeal from Miami-based Eller & Co., which had tried to have the deal barred on technical grounds, arguing that U.S. concerns about a United Arab Emirates company owning significant operations at six major U.S. seaports could harm its business. The lower High Court had already approved the 3.9 billion pound ($6.8 billion) acquisition of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam...

DUBAI-ITIES:HILLARY 'KNOWNOTHING VICTIM' CLINTON STRIKES AGAIN by Mia T, March 6, 2006     (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE) audio montage, Lincoln-pose scoop: rushlimbaugh.com 'REFUSAL TO LEVEL WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE'... IS HILLARY 'KNOWNOTHING VICTIM' CLINTON'S MIDDLE NAMEby Mia T, February 16, 2006 DUBAI DUETSThe American Spectator ^ | 3/6/06 | Washington Prowler Late Friday, Department of Justice lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel were attempting to determine if former President Bill Clinton had registered as an "Agent of a Foreign Principal." Federal statute requires that anyone -- even a former President -- doing political...

Chinese Got Long Beach Deal! By Staff Investigative Journalists LONG BEACH DESK - The Long Beach Naval Station was tentatively placed on the Military Base Closure-List by president George Bush in 1991. President Bill Clinton, closed the naval base last in 1993. That resulted in the loss to Long Beach, California of 17,500 military and civilian jobs. The economic impact of the of loss was $52.5 million and drove the California economy into the tank. It has never recovered. Between 1995-1996, during the heat of the Clinton-Gore Campaign fund raising activity, the Clinton administration actively intervened to make sure...

BUBBA AN AGENT FOR DUBAI? IS Bill Clinton serving as a lobbyist and public-rela tions guru to the government of Dubai? It sure looks like it. He's been paid a pretty penny by Dubai's rulers... The whole affair raises disclosure questions for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, too. While publicly opposing the port deal, she privately benefits from her husband's Dubai-related income. Published reports indicate that that Clinton has been directly advising top Dubai officials over the past two weeks on how to overcome negative public opinion and congressional resistance to the takeover of six U.S. ports by DP World ......

A bomb hidden in a container explodes in a Western port: that is the nightmare of police and terrorism experts, who are turning to new technology to combat the threat. While port security is at the heart of the row in the United States over the controversial proposal to hand over control operations at key US ports to a Dubai company, a consortium of big companies is testing a system which would allow continual checks on the contents and itinerary of a container and above all establish whether it has been opened illicitly. It involves a system of receivers installed...

Port Deal: America's shabby treatment of imperfect allies has boomeranged in the past. Those who'd kick the UAE out of American ports should ponder what would happen if the U.S. Navy was kicked out of theirs....The UAE has put itself on the line in the war on terror, which is more than can be said of some of our European "friends" whom we liberated twice and protected for six decades. When Winston Churchill was asked abut his alliance with Stalin, he famously replied that he would ally himself with Satan, if the devil was fighting Hitler. U.S. Navy warships dock...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Dubai's government may formally subscribe to the Arab boycott of Israel, but a state-owned company at the center of a controversy over its bid to take over some U.S. port operations says it routinely works with Israeli firms. It's a contradiction increasingly apparent in the region: Several Persian Gulf states, especially ones entering international markets, mostly ignore the boycott even though they haven't formally ended it and don't recognize Israel. Countries like the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part, have also ended secondary boycotts, meaning Israeli products not shipped directly from Israel...

Hillary Clinton 'unaware' of Bill's Dubai ties Financial Times •By Stephanie Kirchgaessner Updated: 3:12 a.m. ET March 4, 2006 Hillary Clinton, a leading opponent of DP World's takeover of some US port operations, was this week forced to admit that she did not know her husband had advised Dubai leaders on how to handle the growing dispute. Mrs Clinton's own senatorial financial disclosure forms reveal that her husband earned $450,000 giving speeches in Dubai in 2002. Mr Clinton's admiration for the UAE was last on display in November, when he made his fourth visit to the American University in Dubai...

DICK MORRIS: CLINTON IS A PAID AGENT OF THE CROWN PRINCE OF DUBAI by Mia T, 03.03.06   A CALL TO IMPEACH CLINTON IN ABSENTIA by Mia T, 11.17.05         id you see it? More to the point, did the American press? bill clinton made page one of Al Jazeera today. A schizophrenic mix of schadenfreude and agitprop, it was the story of an impeached ex-president of America trashing America--to standing Os--in the Arab state of Dubai--in the middle of a war zone--only several hundred miles from the American troops. And, to rub it in, the...

A century's defining moment By Salena Zito TRIBUNE-REVIEW Sunday, March 5, 2006 "Success in Iraq will be a major setback for terrorists and a major asset for the security of this region," Zalmay Khalilzad told me in a telephone interview from Baghdad last week. "The struggle for Iraq is the struggle for the future of the world."

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... "I think we should kill this deal," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican, who plans to introduce a bill next week to do so. "Dubai cannot be trusted..." 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....

Posted: Friday, 03 March 2006 5:14AM San Diego Congressman to Introduce Legislation to Kill Ports Deal Steve Marshall Reporting KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO SAN DIEGO, CA (KNX) -- Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-San Diego) has announced that he plans to introduce legislation to kill the plan for a Dubai company to assume the operation of some U.S. ports. Hunter says the company, Dubai Ports World, has a history of shipping banned items such as chemical weapons and nuclear triggers. "Dubai cannot be trusted," Hunter told his colleagues in the House. "And you have to have ownership that is trusted when that ownership...

Last week The Onion, America’s version of Private Eye, ran a story about the collapse of President George W Bush’s popular support. The Democrats, it suggested, were going to miss an open goal yet again. “We are entirely capable of bungling this opportunity to regain control of the House and Senate and the trust of the American people,” Harry Reid (Democrat, Nevada), the Senate minority leader, said to scattered applause. “It will take some doing, but we’re in this for the long and pointless haul.” “We can lose this,” Reid added. “All it takes is a little lack of backbone.”...

March 4, 2006 -- Has there ever been a slicker political double-play combination than Bill and Hillary Clinton? Consider how the former president, and the desperately-wants-to-be president, seek to have it both ways in the controversy over the Dubai ports deal. Sen. Hillary - joined by her New York colleague, Chuck Schumer, and New Jersey's Bob Menendez - has emerged as a leading voice in opposition to the deal, saying, "Our port security is too important to place in the hands of foreign governments."

In Dubai, everyone refers to their ruler, Emir Mohammed Bin Rashid al-Maktoum, as "MBR." Just to give you an idea of how he is into tourism not terrorism, here's a quick story. He has closed circuit television in his private office. And what are the cameras trained on? Immigration/passport control lines at the airport. If MBR sees the lines are getting too long, he picks up the phone and orders more personnel to reduce the lines. Again, his focus is tourism not terrorism. The US Navy docks its ships at Dubai more often than at any other non-US port in...

Fact Sheet: Securing U.S. Ports The Administration has dramatically strengthened port security since 9/11. Funding has increased by more than 700% since September 11, 2001. Funding for port security was approximately $259 million in FY 2001. DHS spent approximately $1.6 billion on port security in FY 2005. Following 9/11, the federal government has implemented a multi-layered defense strategy to keep our ports safe and secure. New technologies have been deployed with additional technologies being developed and $630 million has been provided in grants to our largest ports, including $16.2 million to Baltimore; $32.7 million to Miami; $27.4 million to New...

Hillary Clinton, a leading opponent of DP World's takeover of some US port operations, was this week forced to admit that she did not know her husband had advised Dubai leaders on how to handle the growing dispute. But former President Bill Clinton's ties to Dubai and the United Arab Emirates should not have come as a surprise to his New York senator wife. Mrs Clinton's own senatorial financial disclosure forms reveal that her husband earned $450,000 giving speeches in Dubai in 2002.

The White House is quietly pushing a Dubai company to "significantly restructure" and partner up with a U.S. outfit to keep the port deal from sinking, sources told the Daily News yesterday. "It's in the hands of the company now. ... They're going to have to significantly restructure," said a Republican source familiar with White House expectations. A revamped deal to allow Dubai Ports World to take over six major U.S. ports - including Manhattan's cruise ship terminal and Newark's container depot - would have to be something along the lines of the Marine One contract. British- and Italian-owned AgustaWestland...

A friend, usually most interested in a newspaper's business section, e-mailed his take on the Dubai Ports World issue and asked, "Is this the international equivalent of driving while black, only shipping while Arab?" Though the ongoing debate is a complex intersection of foreign investment, homeland security and government secrecy issues, it is hard to ignore the suggestion of racial profiling or the wider implications for American policy in the Middle East. After all, 80 percent of the ports in the United States are managed by foreign companies. A stevedorer partially owned by the Chinese government runs operations at Long...

The 45-day delay for more investigation into the United Arab Emirates-owned Dubai Ports World looked last week like a port in a political storm. Now it looks more like a trap. The 45-day review at best freezes the debate in place, preserving a status quo in which the White House is taking a political pounding. At worst, it allows the opponents of the deal, who have the offensive, to keep picking away at it, whether by airing (and distorting) past Coast Guard concerns about DP World or highlighting the company's participation in the Arab boycott of Israel. The White House,...

Ocean-going cargo is the critical link in the United States' economic supply chain--as well as the most effective delivery vehicle for a terrorist-inspired weapon of mass destruction.A WMD-laden container ship entering Los Angeles, Seattle or New York would be enough to bring the entire U.S. economy grinding to a halt--whether successfully detonated or not. Either way, the impact would be devastating economically and politically both here and abroad. Alas, ocean-going cargo is also the least secure. Despite efforts by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, to randomly check the manifests of containers...

Three Crew Members Killed by Toxic Gas on Cruise Ship in Los Angeles PortBy Tim Molloy Associated Press Writer Published: Sep 2, 2005 LOS ANGELES (AP) - Three members of a cruise ship crew were killed by toxic sewer gas Friday as they repaired a waste pipe aboard the ship that had just returned to the Port of Los Angeles. No passengers were injured, but 19 other crew members from Royal Caribbean's Monarch of the Seas were examined for possible exposure to the toxic gas, authorities said. Passengers were leaving the ship at the time of the incident, the company...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Three crew members were killed by an apparent methane gas leak aboard a cruise ship in the Port of Los Angeles on Friday, a fire spokeswoman said. There were three fatalities and seven other people injured, Fire Department spokeswoman Melissa Kelley said. No passengers were involved, she said. Two of the injured were ship's physicians who had gone to aid the others. Two of the injured were being taken to hospitals. The other five were "walking," she said. The incident aboard Royal Caribbean's Monarch of the Seas was reported at 9:15 a.m. Crew members were performing...

Damage to Coastal Marshes May Mean Lasting Problems For Nation's Vital River. As state and federal officials grapple with massive human toll wrought by one of the most powerful hurricanes to ravage the US coastline, evidence mounted that the storm also damaged the critical Mississippi River shipping corridor south of New Orleans as weell as the remote towns and ecologically sensitive marches that surround it. Photographs and first-hand accounts from helicopter pilots, boat captains and engineers working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration indicate that the main channel of the river remains intact. But the surrounding nub of land...

...And they may see an increase in coffee prices. New Orleans, one the nation's biggest coffee ports, holds about 8% of the world's supply, and coffee industry experts predicted that the loss of the tens of thousands of tons stored there would take a year to replace. Coffee contracts have risen 11% this week in New York trading. ...One major impediment to reopening the port is the lack of workers, LaGrange said, because many port employees have left the flood-ravaged city. In addition, railroads that serve the port were still having to route trains around New Orleans because of damage...

WASHINGTON — U.S. ports are preparing for catastrophic terrorism in a major new program of security drills that began last week in the San Francisco Bay area and continues next week in Baltimore (see GSN, Aug. 11). The federal Port Security Training Exercises Program (PortSTEP) is to bring together government and private-sector officials responsible for maritime transportation and commerce, emergency response and land transit in 40 port districts around the United States. Officials participate in fictitious incident scenarios intended to reflect the terrorist threat environment. “Everyone was really, really engaged because the scenarios were very realistic” in the San Francisco...