Posted on 02/17/2006 9:56:33 AM PST by cgk
***scroll for updates***
Forget about the Cheney accidental shooting. Based on my e-mail and the growing outcry from both sides of the political aisle, this was and is the big story of the week--and it's picking up steam:
[LES KINSOLVING]: The government's Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has approved a deal that will put six major ports in the United States under the control of a state-sponsored company based in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. And my question: Knowing, as we do, that the Arab Emirate was tied in many ways to the 9/11 hijackers and their deeds, and knowing the critical nature of port security and protecting the nation, will the President step in and stop this deal from going into effect March 2nd?
[White House Press Secy SCOTT McCLELLAN]: Well, my understanding, Les, is that this went through the national security review process under CFIUS, at the Department of Treasury. That is the agency that is responsible for overseeing such matters. And this includes a number of national security agencies -- the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Justice, among others, and there is a rigorous review that goes on for proposed foreign investments for national security concerns. And in terms of specifics relating to this, Treasury is the chair of this and you should direct those questions to Treasury.
No. The buck stops with the White House. The president has the ultimate authority to stop the deal. And he should.
Yet, as I noted earlier today, the White House is standing by the approval of the $7 billion sale giving United Arab Emirates-owned Dubai Ports World control over significant operations at six major American ports.
You can find background on CFIUS, the secretive Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, that makes recommendations on foreign acquisitions, and the Exon-Florio provision, which gives the President broad powers to block certain types of foreign investment, here (pdf file).
Reuters notes:
Treasury spokeswoman Brookly McLaughlin said the 12-agency Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, chaired by Treasury Secretary John Snow, had reviewed the transaction and did not object.
Snow is a former chairman of freight rail company CSX Corp., which sold its global port assets to Dubai Ports World for $1.15 billion in 2004 -- the year after Snow had left the company for the Bush administration.
Stewart Baker, assistant secretary of policy at the Department of Homeland Security, said Dubai Ports World had a solid security record.
"We could not find anything concrete that led us to believe that the transaction ought to be stopped for national security reasons," Baker told Reuters.
Really? They couldn't find anything concrete? The New York Post did:
True, the deal reportedly was approved by the top-secret U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which decided there was no security risk.
But at a time when security in the ports remains unacceptably lax, we wonder whether this is a wise move.
Dubai Ports, after all, is owned by the United Arab Emirates, whose banking system - considered the commercial center of the Arab world - provided most of the cash for the 9/11 hijackers. Indeed, much of the operational planning for the World Trade Center attacks took place inside the UAE.
And while the Bush folks now consider the UAE a major ally in the war against terror, the Treasury Department has been stonewalled by the emirates, and other Arab countries, in trying to track Osama bin Laden's bank accounts. The new leader of Dubai, one of the seven small countries that make up the UAE, has said all the right things about fighting radical Islam since 9/11. But this remains very much an Islamist nation, where preaching any religion other than Islam is prohibited.
Frank Gaffney also warns in the NY Sun:
This is not the first time this interagency panel - called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States - has made an astounding call about the transfer of control of strategically sensitive U.S. assets to questionable purchasers. In fact, as of last summer, CFIUS had, since its creation in 1988, formally rejected only one of 1,530 transactions submitted for its review.
Such a record is hardly surprising given that the committee is chaired by the Treasury Department, whose institutional responsibilities include promoting foreign investment in the United States. Treasury has rarely seen a foreign purchase of American assets that it did not like. And this bias on the part of the chairman of CFIUS has consistently skewed the results of the panel's deliberations in favor of approving deals, even those opposed by other, more national security-minded departments. Thanks to the secrecy with which CFIUS operates, it is not clear at this writing whether any such objection was heard with respect to the idea of contracting out management of six of our country's most important ports to a UAE company. There would certainly appear to be a number of grounds for rejecting this initiative, however:
* America's seaports have long been recognized by homeland security experts as among our most vulnerable targets. Huge quantities of cargo move through them every day, much of it of uncertain character and provenance, nearly all of it inadequately monitored. Matters can only be made worse by port managers who might conspire to bring in dangerous containers, or simply look the other way when they arrive.
* Entrusting information about key U.S. ports - including, presumably, government-approved plans for securing them, to say nothing of the responsibility for controlling physical access to these facilities, to a country known to have been penetrated by terrorists is not just irresponsible. It is recklessly so...
...How could even a stacked deck like the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States find it possible to approve the Dubai Ports World's transaction?
Could it have been influenced by the fact that a former senior official of the UAE company, David Sanborn, was recently named the new administrator of the Transportation Department's Maritime Administration? Until recently, Mr. Sanborn was DP World's director of operations for Europe and Latin America.
Or is it because the U.S. government views - and is determined to portray - the United Arab Emirates as a vital ally in this war for the Free World? A similar determination has long caused Washington to treat Saudi Arabia as a valued friend, even as the Saudis continue playing a double game whereby they work simultaneously to repress terrorism at home and abet it abroad.
Whatever the explanation, the nation can simply no longer afford to have the disposition of strategic assets - including those that have a military or homeland security dimension - determined by a Treasury-dominated panel whose deliberations and decisions are made in secret without congressional oversight.
Either the president or Congress should see to it that the United Arab Emirates is not entrusted with the operation of any American ports, and that the Treasury Department is stripped of the lead role in evaluating such dubious foreign investments in the United States.
One of my readers offers a different view:
My husband works in the international transportation industry. In fact, his boss at one time was Dave Sanborn, the man that the White House has appointed to a post within the Maritime Commission. Dave was most recently working for DWI in the Dominican Republic and has worked for them before. DWI is not "buying the American ports" as I see frequently misrepresented in articles about this in the MSM. American ports cannot be bought.
They are buying the port operating division of a London-based, British-owned Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. That purchase will include current contracts that P&O ports has with the various ports listed in the stories. There are other port operation companies out there. The port in New York or any of the other ports mentioned could choose to contract with some other company if they do not want DWI being responsible for operating terminals in these ports. As we understand it the same employees who work for P&O currently will still be the employees that work there after the purchase goes through.
I don't think there are suddenly going to be Arabs running all over the ports. Anymore so than there already are. Actually because of regulations and unions, more and more of ocean shipping, port operations and terminal operations in America are being run by non-American companies. Just a heads up...as we read the stories the information is so fact challenged. My husband does think there is room for some clarification, but to have Chucky [Schumer] out there trying to make this into a "the Bush adminstration IS NOT concerned about port security" is just spin.
Well, she makes a few good points about the how and why of the deal. But whether we should do it is the key issue. And my bottom line is that the deal looks bad and smells worse.
I'm with the Washington Times:
The root question is this: Why should the United States have to gamble its port security on whether a subsidiary of the government of the United Arab Emirates happens to remain an antiterrorism ally?
The Committee on Foreign Investment is the wrong place for this decision to be made; it appears to be little more than a rubber stamp.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, New York Democrat, among others, is asking tough questions about this deal. For once, we agree with him: President Bush should overrule the committee to reject this deal. If that doesn't happen, Congress should take action. The country's ports should not be owned by foreign governments; much less governments whose territories are favored by al Qaeda.
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461
comments@whitehouse.gov
***
FYI, you can find a map of terminal facilities operated around the world by DPI here.
Update: Ed Morrissey digs up concrete concerns abot the UAE in the 9/11 Commission report:
Page 138: "Even after Bin Ladin’s departure from the area, CIA officers hoped he might return, seeing the camp as a magnet that could draw him for as long as it was still set up.The military maintained readiness for another strike opportunity.160 On March 7, 1999, [Richard] Clarke called a UAE official to express his concerns about possible associations between Emirati officials and Bin Ladin.Clarke later wrote in a memorandum of this conversation that the call had been approved at an interagency meeting and cleared with the CIA." [This involved Clarke blowing a cover on a covert operation.]
Page 167: "In early 2000,Atta, Jarrah, and Binalshibh returned to Hamburg. Jarrah arrived first, on January 31, 2000.97 According to Binalshibh, he and Atta left Kandahar together and proceeded first to Karachi, where they met KSM and were instructed by him on security and on living in the United States. Shehhi apparently had already met with KSM before returning to the UAE.Atta returned to Hamburg in late February, and Binalshibh arrived shortly thereafter. Shehhi’s travels took him to the UAE (where he acquired a new passport and a U.S. visa), Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and one or more other destinations."
Page 171: "Bin Ladin relied on the established hawala networks operating in Pakistan, in Dubai, and throughout the Middle East to transfer funds efficiently."
Page 216: "On June 20, Hanjour returned home to Saudi Arabia. He obtained a U.S. student visa on September 25 and told his family he was returning to his job in the UAE. Hanjour did go to the UAE, but to meet facilitator Ali Abdul
Aziz Ali.62"
Page 224: "The Hamburg operatives paid for their flight training primarily with funds wired from Dubai by KSM’s nephew,Ali Abdul Aziz Ali. Between June 29 and September 17, 2000,Ali sent Shehhi and Atta a total of $114,500 in five transfers ranging from $5,000 to $70,000."
Page 236: "After training in Afghanistan, the operatives went to a safehouse maintained by KSM in Karachi and stayed there temporarily before being deployed to the United States via the UAE. ... Ali apparently assisted nine
future hijackers between April and June 2001 as they came through Dubai. He helped them with plane tickets, traveler’s checks, and hotel reservations; he also taught them about everyday aspects of life in the West, such as purchasing clothes and ordering food. Dubai, a modern city with easy access to a major airport, travel agencies, hotels, and Western commercial establishments,was an ideal transit point."
Ed concludes: "In fact, many of the 9/11 hijackers transited through the UAE, and a significant amount of al-Qaeda cash came through UAE-based accounts. If they run their own country's borders so poorly, why would we trust them to run ours?"
Exactly.
Update II: Debbie Schlussel has background on Dubai's Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum.
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God, this port deal stinks so bad. The Bush administration is losing its damn mind.
Please explain why you think that.
We're sort of already doing that.
Port control to the Arabs, border security to the Mexican government... next it'll be the Chinese guarding our missile silos.
Good work
Good research! There is mischief afoot in Washington.
Thanks! I found it quite interesting to research these members today, I'm glad you could fill in everyone on the details. My head is spinning today....
I wasn't sure how'd you guys take it, thought I'd be slammed as an anti-bush gal, when I am not.
Agreed.....need more info.
Just saw your post with a LOT of info!!
Thanks!
The bots are no different than the idiots who thought sticking a cigar in a fat intern was no big deal. They are too blind with party loyalty to see how foolish they look.
This same group was upset at our being upset over Meirs. They are upset that we cringe at the proposed shamnesty plan. Etc etc. They think prescription drug bill was a good thing. Etc Etc. It never ends.
bump for later read
Very hot.
I agree.
Same mentality. 180 degree difference in political philosophy.
I want to support GWB, but when he acts like a liberal, I'm sorry, I am not bending over like that.
"This is an outrage and incredibly foolish. I am tired of the foolishness on the part of our leaders."
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They are going to bury us.....common sense has been routed by political correctness. It's so frustrating....we're due to get exactly what we deserve.
That's good to know!
I don't know that WE deserve it. But yes, common sense and wisdom are utilized so little by our leaders.
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