Maritime Intelligence Opportunity lost due to bad P.R.

US Naval Institute Blog ^ | 19 February 2009 | FFry

[DJ Elliott]

Remember the furor back in 2006 over the news that a Dubai-based company was going to buy a ship terminal operator in the United States?

Remember how all of a sudden many Americans decided against letting a foreign company operate cargo terminals inside the US, despite the fact that the same terminals were already being operated by a foreign corporation? (P&O Ports, UK)

Remember how nobody, including Congress, wanted to take a second and actually investigate what risks there were, if any, given that this purchase would not have changed the fact that the US Coast Guard would have remained in charge of Port Security and that US Customs would still have retained full control of inspecting incoming ships and cargo?

Nobody, especially Congress, bothered to look at any possible benefits this purchase could have brought to the US. This last issue is a shame, because there was a big intelligence benefit this purchase would have brought. An intelligence benefit that was sabotaged by our own Congress which was suffering from Dubai Port hysteria. (Over 30 bills were submitted to Congress over this issue.)

Instead of looking at the Dubai Ports World purchase as a threat, I saw it as a potential opportunity. Here was what I considered the best security reason for the approval of the attempted Dubai Ports World purchase of P&O Ports last year.

[DJ Elliott]

The deal behind the deal.