I don't know why everyone, Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative or libertarian, isn't working to block this port deal. I mean, come on.....I don't care about any of the rationalizations about vetting it out...it is still a nation that has blocked some efforts to get at Bin Laden and is in a part of the world we cannot feel secure about in any way.
Who supports this, besides the administration?
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Congressman says US should freeze Dubai port deal By Tim Ahmann
Sun Feb 19, 5:32 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration has failed to put adequate security conditions on a deal for a state-owned Dubai company to manage major U.S. ports, and it should not go forward pending a full investigation, a key Republican congressman said on Sunday.
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Lawmakers from both parties joined in criticizing the deal, and one called the administration "tone deaf" for approving it.
Rep. Peter King (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee, said that before the administration approved the sale of British firm P&O, which manages six U.S. ports, to Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates, it failed to determine whether the company could be trusted.
"The administration should freeze the contract ... until a full and thorough investigation is carried out," King told Reuters.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, defending the deal, said the administration approved it after a classified review and included provisions to protect national security.
"You can be assured that before a deal is approved we put safeguards in place, assurances in place, that make everybody comfortable that we are where we need to be from a national security viewpoint," Chertoff said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."
King said the safeguards did not go far enough, but that he could not disclose classified details about them.
"I know that they checked out the top people in the company, but middle-level management, the workers, people who would have access to any type of sensitive information, none of that really has been looked into," the New York lawmaker said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), a South Carolina Republican, said it was a mistake for the administration to approve the sale and said Congress should look into it.
"It's unbelievably tone deaf politically at this point in our history, four years after 9/11, to entertain the idea of turning port security over to a company based in the UAE who avows to destroy Israel," Graham said on "Fox News Sunday."
Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), a California Democrat, criticized the secrecy of the administration's review and said she would support legislation to block foreign companies from buying port facilities.
"I'm going to support legislation to say 'No more, No way.' We have to have American companies running our own ports," Boxer said on CBS's "Face the Nation."
'UNACCEPTABLE RISK'
Last week, Sens. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Hillary Clinton of New York, both Democrats, said they would offer legislation to ban companies owned or controlled by foreign governments from acquiring U.S. port operations.
"It is an unacceptable risk," Menendez said on Sunday.
Some in Congress have expressed fears that the UAE was used as a conduit for parts used for nuclear proliferation and that the local banking system had been abused by financiers with possible links to terrorist organizations.
The Bush administration considers the UAE an ally against terrorism.
The UAE company would control management of ports in New York and New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Miami.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a U.S. inter-agency panel that reviews security implications of foreign takeovers of strategic assets, reviewed the transaction and did not object.
U.S. seaports handle 2 billion tons of freight each year. Only about 5 percent of containers are examined on arrival.
The Senate Banking Committee plans to hold a hearing next week to examine concerns about the P&O sale and the U.S. government review process, a panel spokesman said. |
