Posted on 03/09/2006 9:02:17 AM PST by prairiebreeze
Dubai is threatening retaliation against American strategic and commercial interests if Washington blocks its $6.8 billion takeover of operations at several U.S. ports.
As the House Appropriations Committee yesterday marked up legislation to kill Dubai Ports World’s acquisition of Britain’s Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation (P&O), the emirate let it be known that it is preparing to hit back hard if necessary.
A source close to the deal said members of Dubai’s royal family are furious at the hostility both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill have shown toward the deal.
“They’re saying, ‘All we’ve done for you guys, all our purchases, we’ll stop it, we’ll just yank it,’” the source said.
Retaliation from the emirate could come against lucrative deals with aircraft maker Boeing and by curtailing the docking of hundreds of American ships, including U.S. Navy ships, each year at its port in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the source added.
It is not clear how much of Dubai’s behind-the-scenes anger would be followed up by action, but Boeing has been made aware of the threat and is already reportedly lobbying to save the ports deal.
The Emirates Group airline will decide later this year whether it will buy Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner or its competitor, Airbus A350. The airline last fall placed an order worth $9.7 billion for 42 Boeing 777 aircraft, making Dubai Boeing’s largest 777 customer.
Dubai in mid-February also established the Dubai Aerospace Enterprise, a $15 billion investment to create a company that will lease planes, develop airports and make aircraft parts to tap into growing demand for air travel in the Middle East and Asia.
The family-ruled sheikhdom may buy as many as 50 wide-body aircraft from Boeing and Airbus during the next four years, according to Aerospace Enterprise officials.
The UAE military also bought Boeing’s Apache helicopters. Meanwhile, Boeing has been in talks with the emirates to try to sell its AWACS planes.
An industry official with knowledge of Boeing’s contracts with Dubai said that the company has been involved in the emirate and that it would take a lot “to knock” those relationships.
“Nothing about the [ports] controversy diminishes our commitment to the region,” said John Dern, Boeing’s corporate spokesman. He added that at this point the company has no indication that there is or will be an impact on the company.
Any repercussion to Boeing could put House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) in a delicate position. Boeing’s decision to move its headquarters to Chicago has been seen as calculated to facilitate a close relationship with Hastert. He is against the ports deal, and his office did not return calls by press time.
Several businesses have expressed concern that the controversy over the $6.8 billion ports deal could damage trade with the UAE. Dubai is one of the seven emirates. The United States and the UAE are meeting next week for a fourth round of talks to sign a free-trade agreement. The American Business Group of Abu Dhabi, which has no affiliation with the U.S. government, said that Arabs may hesitate to invest into the United States, according to a report by Reuters.
A Republican trade lobbyist said that because the ports deal is a national-security issue blocking it would not be in violation of World Trade Agreement rules.
“In terms of them retaliating legally against the U.S. … I don’t think there are many options there,” the lobbyist said.
But when it comes to the emirates’ cooperation in the war on terrorism and in intelligence gathering, there is concern that some help may be pulled.
“If we reject the company in terms of doing the [ports] work, they are going to lose a lot of face. In the Arab culture, losing face is a big deal,” a former government official said. “We risk losing that help. It is not an empty threat.”
Dubai is a critical logistics hub for the U.S. Navy and a popular relaxation destination for troops fighting in the Middle East. On many occasions since the ports story erupted, the Pentagon has stressed the importance of the U.S-UAE relationship.
Last year, the U.S. Navy docked 590 supply vessels in Dubai, plus 56 warships, Gordon England, deputy secretary of defense, said in a Senate hearing last month. About 77,000 military personnel went on leave in the UAE last year, he added.
During the hearing, he warned about the implications of a negative decision on the ports deal: “So obviously it would have some effect on us, and I’d not care to quantify that, because I don’t have the facts to quantify it. It would certainly have an effect on us.”
Although owned by the Dubai government, the company at the heart of this controversy, Dubai Ports World, is trying to distance itself from any kinds of threats, said a lobbyist closely tracking the deal.
Another lobbyist monitoring the controversy said K Street still believes there will be a compromise that allows the Dubai deal to go through while meeting congressional security concerns, even though a bill aimed at that result, put forward by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King (R-N.Y.), was widely repudiated amongst lawmakers Tuesday.
Senate leaders have indicated that they would wait to take action until the new 45-day Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) review is completed.
Meanwhile, in London, DP World cleared the last hurdle for its take over of P&O. The Court of Appeal in London refused Miami-based Eller & Co., which opposed the deal, permission to appeal against clearances for the legal and financial measures necessary to implement the takeover.
P&O said it expects to file the requisite court orders, making the takeover terms binding on DP World, according to the Financial Times.
Elana Schor contributed to this report.
http://www.al-bab.com/yemen/cole1.htm
http://www.cargolaw.com/2000nightmare_cole.html
Aden, Yemen is where the Cole was attacked.
Hmm. You both seem to be making this same baseless argument. I can't tell whether you are both paroting the Wiener Nation or not, because he's the only talking head I know uninformed enough to make this argument. Allow me to school you:
1) The UAE does not depend on us for security. We depend on it for the security of our mildly armed Naval vessels and unarmed combat personel visiting their nation.
2) Saudi Arabia faces much greater internal threats than the UAE that their royals have fostered. Yet they depend so little on the US for security that they have thrown the US military off of it's territory (the same military the UAE royals welcomed.)
3) The UAE royals would not be a target of any jihadist at all had they not reached out and allied with us and stayed loyal to us.
This is no way to treat a friend. You knee-jerk anti-arabists are just as bad as the knee-jerk anti-semites like Buchanan and Novak. It DOES NOT MATTER what they have done for us or what they are doing for us, all that matters to you guys is that they are 'sand niggers' and your brain shuts off.
But now it seems that Arabs, or I guess at least those who live in the UAE are our butt buddies and we just can't do enough for them after everything they have done for us. So I would suppose that also means the Muslims, those in the UAE at least, are no longer an evil religion, or maybe just partly evil, but then, well like I said, I'm just confused now.
Bullsh*t.
I dare you to find one, even one speech or statement by President Bush saying "Arabs" are our enemies. Most people here are clued in to the difference between an ideology and a race. The people on this thread who are trashing Arabs are doing so as a fringe.
You are also totally off the mark, because both Iraq and Afghanistan are ALLIES. That was a big point in the WOT.
You are not confused, you are a troll.
Well, I certainly won't deny there is some truth to that at least with the most fundamentalist segments.
It could be said that the muslims that I personally know might be viewed as apostates by the more "devout" or fundamentalist muslims.
The muslims I know view themselves as Americans, and seem not much different in many respects. Their children are westernized, and so on. Granted, the circle I know is no more than a handful, all are well educated.
But it gives hope to me that change is possible with muslims.
See post 1672 where I publicly admitted MY mistake.
Not being snarky either. Sorry if it might have sounded that way.
But in any case, my point is that that article, no matter when it might have come out, was before Dubai said they were going to sell off the US portion of the purchase.
Which makes it very old news indeed.
Events move quickly these days.
Boy, ain't that the truth
ROFLMAO.............Flouride Wars! Excellent!
As Margaret Carlson said on Hardball tonight, "You can't just ask ONE Of them to leave."
Hunter Duncan's bill is going to be a TREMENDOUS boondoggle for this country.
That about sums it up.
Haven't we heard THAT before.......LOL.
Not exactly. This thread and the one I linked were posted today before the latest announcement as well. It seemed like you came into this thread acting like we should have been clairvoyant to that one point, not snark, just pointing out the timeline. The latest announcement does not, however, change what came before it and what was discussed or is still being discussed.
Don't you just HATE it when that happens and you end up being raked over the coals for the next thousand or so posts?
:-)
I never read the article. If you don't like the discussion don't participate.
You should spend a day or two in some of these immigration threads on FR.
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."
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.
"I am very dismayed by the emotional responses that some people have put on the table here in the United States that really comes down to Arab and Muslim bashing that was totally unnecessary,"
Maybe what killed the port deal was the sheer ludicrousness of port deal apologists talking like Guardian columnists decrying 'islamophobia' and 'anti-Arab racism'. When the American people heard this nonsense they smelled generous applications of petrodollar grease.
The UAE is not a country. It is the private property of one man. A mortal man. A man who spent a lot of money greasing a lot of people in Washington so a deal would go through. But it failed. It failed because the American people did not have a price and were not willing to be sold.
I saw him say it; he looked furious.
They didn't want to listen to Tommy Franks, so why would they listen to him?
Blowback is gonna be H E L L.
Sure. Why not? The test isn't "consistency," is it?
Pathetic (but entertaining) performance all around.
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