Posted on 02/21/2006 7:58:22 PM PST by demlosers
NEW YORK (Reuters) - British firm P&O (PO.L: Quote, Profile, Research) may have to retain management of six major ports in the United States even though it is on the verge of being taken over by Dubai Ports World, a U.S. congressman said on Tuesday.
Republican Rep. Peter King is one of a growing number of American legislators who oppose allowing state-controlled Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates to manage American ports, citing security concerns. He plans to introduce legislation halting the deal next week.
"I think for the short-term the British company would probably have to stay on doing that (managing the ports, if the legislation is passed)," King, chairman of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, told a news conference.
P&O shareholders last week approved Dubai Ports World's $6.8 billion takeover, which would create the world's third-largest ports group.
The deal has approval from U.S. regulators, and a British court is expected to give its final approval at a hearing scheduled for February 27.
But Republican and Democratic members of Congress have announced plans to stop the deal, under which Dubai Ports World would take over P&O's management of sea ports in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.
P&O stock soared since the firm said it was in talks about a possible takeover and a bidding war ensued, climbing more than 80 percent from October 31 to its intraday high of 563-2/4 pence on February 6.
The stock has slipped nearly 9 percent since then, closing at 514 pence on Tuesday, below the Dubai Ports World offer price of 520 pence.
King never fails to run to the front of a parade, so that he might lead it.
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Except impeachment. He voted against it. He's a turd.
King is against this and Carter is for it. Very interesting how this is playing politically. No matter which side one takes, he finds himself in agreement with scum.
Are conservatives and the Republican Party really this ignorant? Are they truly so ignorant that they believe a foreign country would become responsible for security at these six ports?
This calls for a good round of banging my head against a spiked wall. At least then I'll know what it feels like to be on the other side of this deal.
Good point. I completely forgot about that one.
Maybe you should get more FACTS before you form an opinion. Think US Customs, Homeland Security and Coast Guard.
Sure, why not, that worked for the Soviets. Oh wait...........
Yes, that's my entire point. Most of FR doesn't understand this: they think the UAE will be directly running the security at these ports--they won't be.
I've been trying to drill that point into a few people's heads, with varying degrees of success.
Don't bother. The MSM and everyone else running against it has the UAE putting their own people in security at the ports by their own standard. Both of which are crap. This is bigotry pure and simple. Not only that its a setback for us trying to strenghthen ties with the more moderate forces of Islam like the UAE (why do you think Bush is so strong against voiding the deal). London was bombed by people from England so having an english company is no safer. The government of the UAE doesn't support terrorism. Even the Clinton administration held they were serious about counter terrorism. And quite franly if you're going to deliver a bomb by ship why pay 6.8 BILLION when you can maybe pay 6 million to get a few cruise missles from Russia or France, load them onto a freighter, get it within a few hundred miles of the coast and launch away? This plays right into Al-Qaeda's hands.
Why are ANY of our ports being run by foreigners? I'd like to hear ONE reason that makes sense. I thought all our ports were owned by the municipalities they serve. I think our federal government has lost all common sense and George Bush is 100% wrong on this one (as well as his stubbornness in refusing to seal our southern border.) I'm just about done supporting him. He seems to work harder for foreign interests than those of the American people. He's going to cost a lot of Republicans from getting elected if they don't distance themselves from him.
BS Repellant
MULLINGS.com An American Cyber-Column
Port Insecurity http://www.mullings.com/index.html
Rich Galen
Wednesday February 22, 2006
This port deal is not a national security issue. It is an issue of this administration having a continuing problem with understanding how these things will play in the public's mind and not taking steps to set the stage so these things don't come as a shock and are presented in their worst possible light.
Let's try that again.
The Administration has no demonstrated capacity to brief allies on its activities so, when a public announcement is made, they have friends ready to explain to the public, either through or in spite of, the news media, what is really going on.
When the National Security Agency's intercept program became public, it was immediately called "domestic eavesdropping" or "domestic spying."
That went on for two weeks before the White House finally had the President refer to it as "terrorist surveillance."
As H.R. Haldeman was reported to have written atop memos he thought lacking: T-L-Squared.
Too little. Too late.
I have been watching this port thing develop over the past 72 hours and a common theme among Members of Congress is: We can't have foreign companies operate US ports.
Robert Menendez (D-NJ), according to the Liberal website Democratic Underground said, "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."
This is the key to the problem. None of these goofballs knew that the ports of New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, and New Orleans were ALREADY run by a foreign-owned company.
The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, a British outfit, has the contract to operate these ports. P & O (as it is known to those of us well-schooled in the port-operations game) is being sold to another company - Dubai Ports World (DP World) which will take over P & O's existing contracts.
All right, so this deal, which has been known to the financial community since November, gets approved by one of those alphabet commissions which happens to involve SIX Cabinet Departments including Treasury, State, Homeland Security, Commerce, and Justice; which they did.
But the Administration didn't think it was necessary to lay the groundwork for the announcement the other day that the sale of one foreign company to another foreign company had been approved.
So, the cable news programming geniuses have been talking about the US outsourcing "port security" to Dubai.
This is like saying the company which operates your local airport - which is to say it decides how much you pay for parking and where in the terminal the Starbucks will be located - is responsible for airline security.
It isn't.
Nor will DP World be responsible for port security. That remains with Customs and the Coast Guard.
The reason the President bristled about this today is because he doesn't think he deserves to be doubted on his commitment to the national security.
It is one thing for Chuck Schumer or Hillary Clinton to complain. It is something else again for Dennis Hastert or Bill Frist to doubt whether the President is strong enough on terrorism.
The Left has been wailing about George W. Bush being, if anything, TOO aggressive on his anti-terrorism efforts using the NSA intercepts as their example. Now those same people are complaining the President is not being tough enough.
Want to know what's really behind all this?
It's an even numbered year and we are 253 days from election day.
It's not about port security; It's about incumbent security.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today:
A link to the Fox News summary of the issue written largely by Major Garrett; http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185479,00.html
A link to a history of P & O (which is pretty interesting); http://portal.pohub.com/portal/page?_pageid=71,212168&_dad=pogprtl&_schema=POGPRTL
A link to a history of DP World (which is less interesting, but includes a listing of all the countries in which they do this kind of work); http://www.dpiterminals.com/subpages.asp?PSID=1&PageID=21
a Mullfoto showing how I was showered with affection during my trip to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; and a Catchy Caption of the Day. http://www.mullings.com/dr_02-22-06.htm
bttt
Myth #3: American ports should be American.
Well, it's too late, baby. According to James Jay Carafano of the Heritage Foundation (a place really known for its Arab-loving, soft-on-terror approach), "Foreign companies already own most of the maritime infrastructure that sustains American trade…"
At the port of Los Angeles, 80 per cent of the terminals are operated by foreign companies. Chinese companies operate more than half the terminals. So why is this suddenly a threat? After all, political outcry managed to scupper the deal a few months ago in which a Chinese company was going to take over the Unocal oil company.
Go to any port in the country and you'll be lucky to see a single giant vessel with U.S.A. on its stern. Foreign-owned airplanes fly into American airports every hour. Many U.S. companies have foreign entities among their largest shareholders.
My colleague Charlie Wolfson reports that State Department sources say Dubai Ports World already handles port calls for U.S. Navy ships from the 5th fleet for their regular port calls in the United Arab Emirates -- a pretty high measure of trustworthiness
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