Posted on 02/20/2006 5:55:26 AM PST by TVenn
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.
Lawmakers from both parties joined in criticizing the deal, and one called the administration "tone deaf" for approving it.
Rep. Peter King, 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, 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, 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. Continued ...
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.
(Additional reporting by Eric Beech
Thank you Senator King! Finally someone "get's it" in Washington, will wonders ever cease?
Where was Babs when Clinton let the Chicoms buy ports in California? Was it different simply because Clinton sold his approval for campaign contributions. Boxer is a putz.
The deal should not be frozen, it should be killed.
Oppps that's CONGRESSMAN King ;) (see you get a promotion already for your ideaLOL)
Bush is putting this out there for Republicans and RATS to kill. For Bush this is a no lose situation. If it is bi-partisan, then no one gains political clout.
Good move Karl Rove. Let everyone on both sides of the aisle appear they are working together. This will highlight the next round of RAT obstructionism.
Too clever by half. If this is an example of Rove's genius, I'd let him go.
The intent of Exon-Florio is not to discourage FDI generally, but to provide a mechanism to review and, if the President finds necessary, to restrict FDI that threatens the national security
. The President retains full authority to protect the national security with respect to any acquisition covered by this statute,
They might as well go ahead and ban Muslims from owning any US company. Outside of that, there is no way killing the deal will pass muster with the courts.
Peter King has long been a media whore who is now surpassing Schumer for his nearly daily press conferences.
This legislation was signed in 1988 by Ronald Reagan. If congress isn't happy with the arrangments they can change the law.
Until now the ports have all been under the ownership of Great Britain.
I'm sure you noticed that all the union workers were fired and replaced by british speaking employees who will now all be fired and replaced with arabs.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/2/19/114128.shtml?s=ic
Appearing on the same program, Sen. Lindsey Graham slammed the ports decision, saying, "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 U.A.E., who avows to destroy Israel."
Chris Shays, Schumer, Clinton, Graham....Peter King, clinton's butt boy????????/
Please..get some facts!
ping
Some facts.
PCFC sukuk shows Dubai's support for Sharia funds
UAE, Palestine to set up a joint investment firm (Hamas)
DP WORLD EXECUTIVE NOMINATED FOR PRESITIGOUS US GOVT POSITION (Dubai Ports World)
Good question!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,561001,00.html
The Saudi man who flew to Karachi on September 11 is believed to have been Mustafa Ahmad. Sheikh Abdullah did not say which UAE bank or banks were involved in the key money transfers. In 1999, a US delegation travelled to the Gulf state with evidence which Washington claimed proved Bin Laden was channelling funds through the Dubai Islamic Bank. After the visit, a state department official said: "The government of the United Arab Emirates has told us that the Dubai Emirate government has taken steps to clean up the bank." More recently, US intelligence sources have been quoted casting doubts on the UAE's commitment to choking off Bin Laden's cash flow.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,584444,00.html
Two months before September 11 Osama bin Laden flew to Dubai for 10 days for treatment at the American hospital, where he was visited by the local CIA agent, according to the French newspaper Le Figaro.
The disclosures are known to come from French intelligence which is keen to reveal the ambiguous role of the CIA, and to restrain Washington from extending the war to Iraq and elsewhere.
Bin Laden is reported to have arrived in Dubai on July 4 from Quetta in Pakistan with his own personal doctor, nurse and four bodyguards, to be treated in the urology department. While there he was visited by several members of his family and Saudi personalities, and the CIA.
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