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Cancel This Deal, Diplomatically (Bill Bennet-Important Read)
National Review ^ | 3-1-06 | William J. Bennett & Seth Leibsohn

Posted on 03/01/2006 1:20:56 PM PST by STARWISE

The Dubai Ports World deal can’t work.

Dubai Ports World, the subsidiary of the United Arab Emirates, has now asked for a 45-day review from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to investigate security concerns over the control of six U.S. ports. This is to the good, calming calls for congressional action as well as subsequent threats of a presidential veto. Many lobbyists have been hired, charges alleged, fact-sheets disseminated, and polls put in the field. Still, questions remain to be asked, questions that none of the above D.C. responses have addressed.

(snip)

But better than asking questions, a back-channel message should be sent to the UAE to withdraw this deal, much as China withdrew its UNOCAL bid last year. This deal will not stand public deliberation; it confuses things.

(snip)

Never has the president been further from the base on these issues than now. But, by having the UAE withdraw its offer, the issue will be taken off the table — it can be corrected and ended; otherwise it will live and bleed for at least another 45 days.

(snip)

No matter how many assurances we are given that our government will remain in charge of this security, the cargo will be managed and coordinated by a foreign-owned company whose country has anything but a strong record in preventing terrorism. In short, when all the smoke is cleared, the UAE is not a country of tried and true reliability like, say, Great Britain. There is a difference between Great Britain and the UAE, many differences in fact, and we should not be instructed otherwise.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: bds; billbennet; bushbotscirclewagons; dubai; dubaiportsworld; iran; israel; newworldorder; nwo; ports; security; uae; wot
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To: STARWISE

I have a confession....I was just at the DOSE thread..and the pictures of President Bush and Laura in Afghanistan, smiling and shaking hands with the Afghanis, brought tears to my eyes..

And, I too, realized just how much I trust him....and for those that say that he didn't even know about it....he gave the job of checking it out to people he trusts...so it goes when one is the CEO!


61 posted on 03/01/2006 3:09:29 PM PST by Txsleuth
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To: steelcurtain

This isn't about control of ports, just terminals.

Quit confusing this argument with facts. If you cannot scare people with a little AYE-rab talk, then butt out.


62 posted on 03/01/2006 3:10:27 PM PST by DOGEY
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To: STARWISE
Here, Bennett is actually bemoaning Israel's loss of importance in our mideast policy. But that is futile, they can never be as important as they were, and the new paradigms are to Israel's undeniable benefit.

We are in Iraq now and that is and will be the center of our mideast policy. Our overwhelming concern will be toward our troops in Iraq and it's future.

63 posted on 03/01/2006 3:13:10 PM PST by mrsmith
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To: STARWISE
Freedom House rates the UAE "not free" and puts it one notch above Saudi Arabia. The Economist actually ranks it one notch worse than Iran in its "political freedom index." In its report on the country, Freedom House reports that "[c]itizens of the UAE cannot change their government democratically. The UAE has never held an election. All decisions about political leadership rest with the dynastic rulers of the seven separate emirates of the UAE in what is known as the Supreme Council of Rulers." That is not something that can be said about Great Britain.

He's right on this stuff. The UAE is not free.

64 posted on 03/01/2006 3:15:32 PM PST by GOPJ
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To: RegulatorCountry; Stellar Dendrite
Note the date. Dec 2004, More then a year ago. Try to learn facts not just tune out everything that does not agree with your paranoia.

Flashback - December 13, 2004: Dubai, U.A.E., Joins U.S. Container Security Initiative (State Dept.) US Department of State ^ | December 13. 2004

Becomes first Mideast port to participate in U.S. program

The United Arab Emirates has joined the U.S. Container Security Initiative (CSI) to help secure maritime cargo shipments against the threat of terrorism.

In a December 12 news release, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) said the agreement will enable all cargo destined for the United States through the port of Dubai to be prescreened.

CBP will station a small team of officers at Dubai ports to identify sea containers destined for the United States; Dubai customs officials will be responsible for screening containers identified as potential terrorist risks, the U.S. agency said.

Dubai Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation is the sixth-largest port operator in the world and the first in the Middle East to join the CSI, according to the news release.

To date, governments representing 21 countries around the world have signed up to the CSI program, launched by the United States following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Department of Homeland Security

First Middle Eastern Port Formally Commits to Target, Pre-Screen and Secure Cargo Destined for the U.S.

12/12/2004

Dubai, UAE -- Today Dubai Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation joined the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) Container Security Initiative [CSI] making it the first Middle Eastern port to participate. CBP Commissioner Robert C. Bonner and Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, Executive Chairman of the Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation, signed a declaration of principles to acknowledge the agreement that will enable all cargo destined for the U.S. through the port of Dubai to be targeted and pre-screened.

"The threat of terrorism is real and, it's a global threat. Dubai Customs recognizes the absolute importance of protecting cargo against the terrorist threat. I applaud their bold action of assuming a leadership role in the Middle East," said Commissioner Bonner.

CBP will deploy a small team of officers to the port of Dubai, the 6th largest port operator in the world whose mission will be to target sea containers destined for the United States. Dubai Customs officials, working with CBP officers, will be responsible for screening any containers identified as a potential terrorist threat.

The primary purpose of CSI is to help protect the global trading system and the trade routes between CSI ports and the United States. By collaborating with foreign customs administrations, CBP is working towards a safer, more secure world trading system.

Under CSI, CBP has entered into bi-lateral partnerships with other governments to identify high-risk cargo containers and to pre-screen them before they are loaded on vessels destined for the United States. Today, governments representing 21 countries have signed up to implement CSI.

"I congratulate the Dubai Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation on this historic event. They are now partnering with the United States and are a leader in protecting the global trading system," said Ambassador to the UAE [United Arab Emirates] Michele Sison.

CSI did not exist before 9/ll. It was proposed by Commissioner Bonner and launched in January 2002. CSI has been accepted globally as a bold and revolutionary initiative to secure maritime cargo shipments against the terrorist threat. This initiative will continue to expand to strategic locations around the world.

The World Customs Organization (WCO), the European Union (EU), and the G8 [Group of Eight major industrialized economies] support CSI expansion and have adopted resolutions implementing CSI security measures introduced at ports throughout the world.

The 32 operational ports in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America include: Halifax, Montreal, and Vancouver, Canada; Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Le Havre, France; Bremerhaven and Hamburg, Germany; Antwerp and Zeebrugge, Belgium; Singapore; Yokohama, Tokyo, Nagoya, and Kobe, Japan; Hong Kong; Goteborg, Sweden; Felixstowe, Liverpool, Southampton, Thamesport, and Tilbury, United Kingdom; Genoa, La Spezia, Naples, and Gioia Tauro, Italy; Busan, Korea; Durban, South Africa; Port Klang and Tanjung Pelepas, Malaysia; Piraeus, Greece; Algeciras, Spain; and Laem Chabang, Thailand.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is the agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the protection of our nation's borders. CBP unified Customs, Immigration, and Agriculture Inspectors and the Border Patrol into one border agency for the United States.

(end text) >p? (Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.

65 posted on 03/01/2006 3:16:42 PM PST by MNJohnnie ("Good men don't wait for the polls. They stand on principle and fight."-Soul Seeker)
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To: PISANO

SSA Marine out of Seattle can run them.


66 posted on 03/01/2006 3:18:48 PM PST by hedgetrimmer ("I'm a millionaire thanks to the WTO and "free trade" system--Hu Jintao top 10 worst dictators)
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To: RegulatorCountry

67 posted on 03/01/2006 3:20:29 PM PST by Stellar Dendrite (UAE-- Funds HAMAS and CAIR, check my homepage [UPDATED FREQUENTLY])
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To: narby
Actually, I think having the UAE run it will concentrate our efforts to keep things secure, which they aren't now.

By the same reasoning, would you rent a room to a rapist, on the theory that things would be safe because you'd be keeping a closer eye on him since you know he's a rapist?

68 posted on 03/01/2006 3:21:57 PM PST by savedbygrace (SECURE THE BORDERS FIRST (I'M YELLING ON PURPOSE))
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To: MNJohnnie

"U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is the agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the protection of our nation's borders."

Their track record in "protecting" our borders has been flaccid, at best. Am I to be comforted by CBP involvement in this issue as well?


69 posted on 03/01/2006 3:23:38 PM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: Stellar Dendrite

ROFL!!


70 posted on 03/01/2006 3:24:53 PM PST by Cagey (You don't pay taxes - they take taxes. ~Chris Rock)
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To: Stellar Dendrite

Don't forget good ol' Maggie Halfbright.


71 posted on 03/01/2006 3:25:59 PM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: Stellar Dendrite
Thanks for discussion ping.

This is a cage tag-team match between the neo-cons under the banner 'our salvation is bombing the world' and the free-traders under the banner of 'free trade is our salvation'. Jerry 'I know who should be saved' Falwell, will be the referee. Limbaugh & Bennett vs Coleman & Hannity first in the ring with others ready for the tag to come in as this match progresses. To be continued.

72 posted on 03/01/2006 3:26:36 PM PST by ex-snook (God of the Universe, God of Creation, God of Love, thank you for life.)
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To: RegulatorCountry; Stellar Dendrite
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1584887/posts

Posted on 02/24/2006 10:28:57 AM PST by knightshadow

The port of public opinion...

Protests about the planned transfer of management for several U.S. seaports to a state-owned company in the United Arab Emirates are fraught with almost as much confusion as fervor -- which explains why the current division within the political parties is almost as stark as the one between them. When Karl Rove, Jimmy Carter and The Los Angeles Times line up on one side of an issue, while Senators Bill Frist, Chuck Schumer and The New York Times line up on the other, something is seriously amiss.

Of course, the first casualty of political conquest is the truth, which is not to say that both sides don't feel genuine concern. In an effort to elucidate the issue, let us first distinguish between fact and fiction.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a multi-agency panel that evaluates foreign financial interests in the U.S. with national-security implications, has approved the transfer of management of some port terminals (not the sale of these ports) in New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, New Orleans and Houston. The transfer is from a British owned company, Peninsula and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, to Dubai Ports World, which is headquartered in the UAE. What this means, essentially, is that American managers and longshoremen will now get their checks cut by DPW instead of P&O. In other words, DPW will become one of many operators in these ports.

This does not put DPW in a position to act as an agent for al-Qa'ida, delivering weapons of mass destruction to their terror-cell operatives in the U.S., as has been suggested by some print and Internet tabloids. Direct responsibility for port security is shared by the Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, and state and local port authorities. Here it should also be noted that port-management priorities are wholly subordinate to port-security priorities. Of course, port-security operations, particularly those pertaining to interdiction of WMD, are augmented by the entire asset base of the U.S. military, its intelligence community and its law enforcement agencies.

Despite the rancor, the U.S. does not outsource the protection of our critical national-security infrastructure.

Approval of the DPW proposal underwent three months of interagency review. According to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, "This review definitely was not cursory and it definitely was not casual. Rather, it was in depth and comprehensive." This is the same review that management companies based in China, Denmark, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan underwent before being authorized to manage terminals in the port of Los Angeles. We might add, China now manages some terminals on both ends of the Panama Canal.

Foreign investment in the U.S., including port management, is nothing new.

As for the assertion that President George Bush should have known about the proposal, Frances Townsend, his senior advisor for Homeland Security, counters, "Rarely do these [reviews] wind up on the president's desk and that's only after there has been an investigation and there is some disagreement. This didn't get there because none of the agencies who reviewed it had any objection."

The public remonstration in this case is the result of a volatile combination of legitimate sentiments: a fundamental distrust of Islamic countries combined with a concern about the potential for terrorist exploitation of our busy shipping ports.

The distrust is warranted, particularly in the wake of 9/11. Not only were two of the hijackers from the UAE, but 11 of the Saudi hijackers traveled to the U.S. from Dubai, and $250,000 used to bankroll the 9/11 attacks was wired through Dubai banks. There were ties between Islamist emirs in the UAE and Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, and the UAE recognized the Taliban government.

On the latter point, however, our intel sources indicate those ties enabled the CIA to confirm the location of bin Laden twice in 1999, but the Clinton administration declined to eliminate him. Bill Clinton has floated several excuses for why he did not act on this intelligence -- which all sank.

Further, Pakistani nuclear proliferator Abdul Qadeer Khan testified that a UAE company assisted him with the transfer of nuclear technology to Iran. However, as we noted two years ago, our sources indicate that Khan was either a CIA operative or a dupe and that the UAE cooperated fully with surveillance of Khan's contacts in Dubai.

Thus, if we want to punish the UAE because it has airports and banks, or because it has cooperated with CIA clandestine counter-proliferation efforts, so be it. There is, however, no suggestion of evidence that the UAE government had any knowledge, much less complicity, with the al-Qa'ida cell responsible for the 9/11 attacks, or any other attack on U.S. interests or personnel. On the contrary, there is considerable evidence that the UAE, along with Kuwait and now Iraq, is a critical ally in the region.

Indeed, since 9/11 the UAE government has provided significant intelligence and staging support in the war against Jihadistan. They have actively participated in the pursuit of al-Qa'ida terrorists. In 2002, for example, UAE officials arrested and turned over to U.S. officials Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who conspired in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and masterminded the attack on the USS Cole in 2000. In 2004, UAE officials arrested Qari Saifullah Akhtar, who trained thousands of al-Qa'ida operatives around the world. He was returned to U.S. interrogators in Pakistan.

As for Dubai Ports World, it already provides support for U.S. Navy ships in Jebel Ali and Fujairah, which accommodates more U.S. Navy ships than any other international port. DPW is also the primary support contractor for U.S. Air Force assets at Al Dhafra Air Base.

Rising above the din, the real issue is this: America's seaports constitute one of many big holes in our border security, regardless of who manages the terminals. Despite the port security that exists both stateside and in the ports of origin, there is no guarantee that WMD won't be smuggled into the U.S. in one of the thousands of cargo containers that land on our shores each and every day.

As we have noted before, when al-Qa'ida has mated the right nuclear core with the right weapons hardware (something they may have already succeeded in doing), getting that weapon into the U.S. will not be that difficult, regardless of who is managing and securing entry points. The harsh reality is that there simply is no way to secure U.S. borders, with even a modest degree of confidence, against importation of nuclear WMD hardware the size of a footlocker, and a fissile core the size of an orange.

This reality accounts for the Bush Doctrine of Pre-emption -- take the fight to the enemy and endeavor to wage war on their turf, not ours. It is a reality for which pre-emption is our only option -- our only chance of preventing a catastrophic attack on our nation.

This is certainly not to suggest that we adopt the French border-security model -- one in which we throw up our hands and run away. Indeed, we need to be vigilant about territorial security. However, allowing a UAE company to manage some port terminals does not constitute a surrender from such vigilance.

For the public, there may be some psychological solace in the assertion that preventing DPW from managing port terminals is tantamount to securing our destiny -- but it is a false sense of security.

The public confusion, media hysterics and, consequently, opportunistic political posturing and demagoguery have all but completely obscured the facts pertaining to our relationship with the UAE and its shipping conglomerate, DPW. The Democrats have used this issue to leapfrog to the right of Republicans on national security, and some Republicans responded quickly by adopting the same line on DPW. Unfortunately, both are doing so at the peril of our national security.

Not only has President Bush declared, "The UAE has been a valuable partner in fighting the war on terror," but has even threatened to veto any legislation to undo this deal. As he has yet to use his veto for any legislation (to our utter dismay, given some great opportunities), threatening a veto in this case can only mean that the consequences of derailing our relationship with the UAE constitute a grave threat to our national security.

Most likely, a compromise on UAE/DPW between the White House and Republican congressional leaders was brokered prior to public objections from Sen. Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert. If that compromise is anything other than a "technical delay" in approving this transaction, we believe U.S. national security will suffer the consequences.

Feel safer now?

73 posted on 03/01/2006 3:28:32 PM PST by MNJohnnie ("Good men don't wait for the polls. They stand on principle and fight."-Soul Seeker)
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To: RegulatorCountry

oh yeah, lol...ill have to add her ugly mug


74 posted on 03/01/2006 3:29:22 PM PST by Stellar Dendrite (UAE-- Funds HAMAS and CAIR, check my homepage [UPDATED FREQUENTLY])
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To: hedgetrimmer
"SSA Marine out of Seattle can run them. "

Sen. Patty Murray's husband would get a huge raise if the Dems could put the business their way. They've been a good source of Dem funds and frankly I'm surprised their name hasn't come up yet.

75 posted on 03/01/2006 3:30:51 PM PST by mrsmith
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To: Stellar Dendrite

Make sure you add her drinking buddy in the UPS driver's uniform, Kim Jong-il.

76 posted on 03/01/2006 3:35:12 PM PST by Cagey (You don't pay taxes - they take taxes. ~Chris Rock)
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To: MNJohnnie

"The public remonstration in this case is the result of a volatile combination of legitimate sentiments: a fundamental distrust of Islamic countries combined with a concern about the potential for terrorist exploitation of our busy shipping ports. The distrust is warranted, particularly in the wake of 9/11. Not only were two of the hijackers from the UAE, but 11 of the Saudi hijackers traveled to the U.S. from Dubai, and $250,000 used to bankroll the 9/11 attacks was wired through Dubai banks. There were ties between Islamist emirs in the UAE and Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, and the UAE recognized the Taliban government."

Why, this is downright REASONABLE, MNJohnnie. And to think, just a few replies back, you were calling us all bigoted, white trash, isolationist, xenophobic Islamophobes. Did I miss a "phobe" or two?


77 posted on 03/01/2006 3:35:49 PM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: mrsmith
I'm surprised their name hasn't come up yet.

Because the "free traders" want Americans to believe they can't do anything themselves.
78 posted on 03/01/2006 3:40:33 PM PST by hedgetrimmer ("I'm a millionaire thanks to the WTO and "free trade" system--Hu Jintao top 10 worst dictators)
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Comment #79 Removed by Moderator

To: Junior_G; Stellar Dendrite
Is somebody maintaining an official list of long-standing conservatives who have fallen out of favor with the Bushbots? We can add Bill Bennett to that list now.

I don't know, but they're sure running out of FRiends fast enough. Before I even read the article or the first post, I knew what hatred would be spewed forth, and I wasn't let down by the usuals. It's getting old. Blackbird.

80 posted on 03/01/2006 4:09:01 PM PST by BlackbirdSST (Diapers, like Politicians, need regular changing for the same reason!)
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