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.
Oh, please; you were all about "how he can win this," how "he can still pull this out."
Denying that fact just makes you look like a poser.
You're so funny. On here singing the praises of those who 'sneer' at those who disagree with them, and then you have the gall to try and make it about me.
I don't even care to go to one of those tropical, artificial-read fake-islands being constructed by your hirsute, bejeweled friends in Dubai.
What I want is for them to stop traveling to, but most importantly, settling in, my country.
I don't want the United States to turn into a replica of EUrabia, and I don't want New York City to become Londonistan.
I'm merely pointing out that you were HAD, big time.
By a bunch of lies.
FGS, it's ALWAYS about you, EV. Every time somebody disagrees or questions you, you whine about personal attacks.
But I see on another thread, you're trashing George Allen's staff. Nice.
Go on over to that thread and refute me then.
Wrong. You make it that way at every opportunity. You have for over five years.
And as usual, it comes back to your personal vendetta against Alan Keyes.
99% of the time, if his name comes up on a thread I'm involved in, it is because you or one of your close friends bring him up.
Iwas talking to a young woman who works for a company who does business in Dubai, and she said that Dubai is simply planning to turn over control of the US ports to a US subsidiary of the original company, sort of like a straw company, to skirt all the political objections.
There hasn't been any threat. There has been nothing but LIES put out by the RATS and the deluded GOPer brainacs.
Thanks.
None of those oh so laudable intentions has anything to do with misindentifying people. Most Moslems identify themselves with their nation. It is true that the IslamoFascists do not but we are not dealing with that type in the UAE despite the LIES of the Antis to make it appear we are. But that is all they have is LIES.
Good---it's a first step......NOT doing business with us
I guess this will also end our relationship with the Dubai
thoroughbred "community", which would be an answered prayer of mine. Instructive that in the mouths of official Dubai you put the most guileless innocent and reasonable sounding words, and in the mouths of the American detractors the most overwrought, cartoony rhetoric. I think I know whose side you are on.
Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank don't consider people who engage in self-immolation missions that result in the deaths of scores of innocent people "terrorists," but that does not make it a valid judgment.
The headquarters of the Arab League-with the exception of a few years when Egypt was diplomatically isolated because of the first Camp David accords-was in Egyptian territory.
The United Arab Republic was comprised of two nations, Syria and Egypt.
The country that has both tacitly and explicitly supported genocide against non-Arabic ethnic groups in The Sudan and elsewhere is Egypt.
I suppose you could make an argument that Egypt is not an Arab country-and that there are still people who worship the pharoah-but then you would have to say the same thing about Lebanon, Syria, and almost every other country not located on the Arabian peninsula.
Whether a country becomes Arab through forced Arabization-as was the case with most of the conquests of Mohammed and succeeding caliphs-or is innately Arab-by lineage-is immaterial within this context.
You falsely removed the concept of nationality from anyone professing to be a Moslem. Thus my comment was entirely relevent. The rest of your yammering in this post IS irrelevent though.
I have never seen a more pointed attack on a major issue. Nor one expressed with more disgust at one side.
He clearly described the negative impact this will have on Port Security. And was outraged at this imbecility. He called it "stupid" among other things. And made it clear that the opposition was based upon NOTHING true.
I refreshed myself today by watching "I Walk the Line". Should have been best picture. But it was about a good Christian Republican so couldn't have that.
The fact that on a practical level most Muslims living in the Middle East consider themselves to belong to a certain nation-state does not mean that their affiliation to tribe or religion has diminished since the collapse of the vestigial remnants of the Caliphate after the First World War.
Pan-Arabism might be an antiquated idea, but pan-Islam is not only alive and well, but it is flourishing, as the Paris intifada, worldwide riots in response to those innocuous Jyllands-Posten cartoons, and generic support for the 9/11 massacres within the ummah demonstrate.
In this respect, Osama Bin-Laden and the Muslim Brotherhood are merely picking up on the legacy bequeathed by Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, who was simply revivifying a concept that had been inherent in Islam since the time of Mohammed.
Worldwide unity, leading to independence from Western colonialist powers, followed shortly thereafter by the colonization in turn of the West.
Thanks .. I'm going to catch it. This is beyond surreal. The 2 parties, though they're too misguided and blinded by their ulterior motives to see it, finally working together ... and hurting US.
"Bush has promised to veto any bill to stop the sale. I just have to wonder why he is so determined to see this through."
Oil interests.
"I thought this would happen. Our debt will rise. Gas will rise. Our military will be kicked out of countries that have previously supported us. "
Debt rose when 9/11 happened. Such attacks are very expenisve, and need to be pre-empted.
"Probably only the first of many Middle East countries offering some support to us to slam the door."
Some "friends."
The oil emirates are in a bind. Their economies are almost entirely dependant on selling oil, and on being protected. Shuting out the U.S. helps neither point.
Enlightened self interest will prevail in the end.
"The fallout may very well cause much more harm to our National Security and interests than even what the most fertile imaginations of the knee-jerker political opportunists are claiming might happen if Dubai gets to run some of the facilities."
Out of touch.
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