Posted on 02/19/2006 10:30:27 AM PST by LibWhacker
The Bush administration will reverse its decision to allow a Dubai company based in the United Arab Emirates to gain control over several key U.S. ports, the Fox News Channel's Brit Hume predicted on Sunday.
"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."
"I just don't think [the decision] can stand," he added. "It doesn't sound good to let some Arab shieks to be in charge of our ports - that's what it comes down to."
Appearing on the same program, Sen. Lindsey Graham slammed the ports decision, saying, "It's unbelievably tone deaf politically at this point in our history, four years after 9/11, to entertain the idea of turning port security over to a company based in the U.A.E., who avows to destroy Israel."
In a decision announced last week, the Bush administration's Committee on Foreign Investment approved the purchase of six major U.S. ports by the U.A.E.-based Dubai Ports World.
The move set off a firestorm of criticism, with skeptics complaining that banks in the U.A.E. have helped launder money for terrorists and that the country itself was home to Marwan al Shehhi, the Sept. 11 hijacker who piloted United Airlines Flight 175 into Tower 2 of the World Trade Center.
On Friday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended the Dubai deal, telling a Mideast news outlet: "There was a thorough review. It was decided that this could be done and done safely."
"The weakest link is the longshoreman, truck driver, law enforcement officer, etc. with a double-digit IQ who accepts a cash bribe from some Sicilian-looking guy to "look the other way" when a container gets processed at the port or an off-site warehouse."
Exactly. The unions are the weak link. This is about briber and paybacks. The Ports of Authority that do these contracts are all corrupt. The Ports Authorities, which are local patronage operations, make these contracts.
" what is your solution. Nationalize all the ports, create another huge beaucracy giving union goons and in to raid for more graft, or have a company that recruits the best western talent and will not be in charge of security at the port."
Can't reason with people with DD IQs. Most of these people have no idea how ports are run, how business operates or even the difference between Danes and the Dutch.
"Why don't American firms want to do business with the Federal Government? Were there no American companies at all bidding for this project?'
Each Port individually writes a contract to operate to an operating company. This is NOT a federal matter. Ever hear of the Port of Oakland, Port of Tampa, etc. Several Ports have outsourced operations to a British company this company is being acquired in a pretty much standard M&A. The merger, like many, gets a federal review on anti-trust, natiional security and other matters. If the Feds tried to block this M&A it would, likely, end up in court.
" the administration is giving ports to UAE'
One of the most ignorant posts in the blogo-sphere.
"any of these six ports that have "security-related concerns" over this corporate merger should simply set the wheels in motion on whatever process needs to be undertaken in order to terminate the current P&O Ports leases at these facilities.'
I know the hysterical idiots will not read this. The facts get in the way of their world view.
Brit is usually right.
"No one will ever convince me that foreign ownership of domestic port operations is a sound idea"
How do you propose to change this?
Why don't we just get it over with and pass a law banning Muslims from owning any businesses in this country, that will solve all our problems. </sarcasm>
Or nuke Mecca as the Tancredoites have been insisting, and just be done with it. Well, I have news for them. That won't solve anything. That's tantamount to punching a hole in a beehive.
Our Congress has no say in the sale of a British company (P&O) or its financial dealing with other foreign companies. Now letting a contract for goods or services to them by our government they may have the ability to question.
two words: Homeland Security
One of the most ignorant posts in the blogo-sphere.
You are right. The administration has nothing to do with it. Send out a press release and tell all the reporters not to ask the administration any questions about the port deal, because they have no say in it, nothing to do with it, and besides,...people think that if would be indicative of "the most ignorant posts in the blogo-sphere."
I have no love for the unions. I just like the problem to be stated clearly and accurately. We are not selling the pors, and they will not be run by towel-heads. The fact that unions have their own dirty hands is another issue.
Can't reason with people with DD IQs. Most of these people have no idea how ports are run, how business operates or even the difference between Danes and the Dutch.
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True, and this apparently includes a lot of the so-called press.
National defense/homeland security is by far the Repubs strongest point in the minds of the general public, why allow the Dems to knock a big hole in that strong point when it isn't necessary?
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This is true, and I bet our arrangements in Dubai are among the best in the entire world for knowing what is being placed in containers and on ships. One of the changes that was made immediately after Homeland Security was set up was a system of scrutinizing shipments before they ever get loaded, much less get offloaded in the US.
And like the NSA surveillance system, the White House, Chertoff, et al, do not want to describe chapter and verse of what we are doing. So folks who want to make cheap political points will weaken our surveillance defences rather than let a system work for the benefit of all of us.
In 1993, in response to a sense of Congress resolution, CFIUS membership was expanded by Executive Order 12860 to include the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy. In February 2003, the Department of Homeland Security was added to CFIUS. This brought the membership of CFIUS to twelve under the chairmanship of the Secretary of Treasury. The other members are the Secretaries of State, Defense, and Commerce, the Attorney General, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Trade Representative, and the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.
It would seem that the current situation is complicated by the selling company not being an American company, so now one foreign company is selling to another foreign company. I wonder how long the P&O have had these contracts? No one seems to know.
Let's forget about the Panama Canal and a Chinese presence there.
Let's allow COSCO to ply our coastlines and most vital ports.
Let's let foreign nations run our ports.
Let's continue to allow people to come here from terrorist states.
Let's continue to allow our national home to be invaded by three to five million unknowns each year.
Let's cut back our military.
Let's close as many bases as possible.
Let's cut our Navy in less than half.
Let's destroy about 95% of our nuclear arsenal.
Space, aw let's go through the motions, burn off as much funds as possible and achieve nearly nothing.
Space, let's watch other nations progress while we act as if we're impotent.
Education, hey let's double the budget of a department that is hell bent on destorying our values system.
Education, let's continue to allow the DOE to produce students that place something like 19th in the world.
Yes, none of this matters. Those of us who think they do are just way too easily disturbed.
GO D.O. !!!
Blackbird.
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