Posted on 02/21/2006 11:21:25 PM PST by presidio9
-snip-
the notion that the Bush Administration is farming out port "security" to hostile Arab nations is alarmist nonsense. Dubai Ports World would be managing the commercial activities of these U.S. ports, not securing them. There's a difference. Port security falls to Coast Guard and U.S. Customs officials. "Nothing changes with respect to security under the contract," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday. "The Coast Guard is in charge of security, not the corporation."
In a telephone interview yesterday, Kristie Clemens of U.S. Customs and Border Protection elaborated that "Customs and Border Protection has the sole responsibility for the cargo processing and cargo security, incoming and outgoing. The port authority sets the guidelines for the entire port, and port operators have to follow those guidelines."
The timing of this sudden uproar is also a tad suspicious. A bidding war for the British-owned P&O has been going on since last autumn, and the P&O board accepted Dubai's latest offer last month. The story only blew up last week, as a Florida firm that is a partner with P&O in Miami, Continental Stevedoring and Terminals Inc., filed a suit to block the purchase. Miami's mayor also sent a letter of protest to Mr. Bush. It wouldn't be the first time if certain politicians were acting here on behalf of private American commercial interests.
-snip-
As for the Democrats, we suppose this is a two-fer: They have a rare opportunity to get to the right of the GOP on national security, and they can play to their union, anti-foreign investment base as well. At a news conference in front of New York harbor, Senator Chuck Schumer said allowing the Arab company to manage ports "is a homeland security accident waiting to happen." Hillary Clinton is also along for this political ride.
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(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
"Outsourcing" is a major liberal talking point. Controlling the market by requiring US companies to do business only in the US does not help anyone. North Korea hates outsourcing too.
People have been screaming about others (mainly, the people against this) not having the facts but I have seen nothing in the way of facts or opinion that would make me support this deal.
The UAE may be our best ally in the Middle East but is that really saying anything?
All the theory sounds great.
Arab control of the ports still bugs me.
Even with the feds providing security, having foreigners running something as critical as the ports is a concern. Those who run the ports have the power to, er, get creative with operations - and this is where loyalties are important. Considering the UAE's involvement with more than one major international terrorism (and the like) incident, usually in the form of being facilitators of transport and funding, one should wonder whether the same will happen again - this time on our doorstep.
Yes, the feds will run security. They cannot, however, secure everything completely, and have been roundly criticized for being way behind the curve on port security. Only some tiny fraction of cargo containers are checked. Those in charge, should their loyalties follow detrimental paths, can make arrangements for stuff to slip thru. I'm reminded of Hillary supposedly turning $1000 into $100,000 in short order with little knowledge of commodities; despite federal oversight of trading, strings were clearly pulled to let funds flow where they shouldn't, and do so without security oversight being concerned. I'm concerned that, having high-level operational control, someone could observe security patterns, arrange for a certain ship to unload with a minimal chance of being searched, and have a particular container shipped off well before anyone realized its contents are of grave concern.
Yes, regardless of who runs the port there is always risk of crime & corruption. Let's at least make sure it tends to be the American kind, and not enhance the chance of a jihaddist arranging the unloading schedules to detrimental ends.
From what I've seen, there are two groups of people here: Those who are vehemently against this, and those who are taking a "let's wait & see" approach. The latter group is ding very little of the screaming.
BS Repellant
MULLINGS.com An American Cyber-Column
Port Insecurity http://www.mullings.com/index.html
Rich Galen
Wednesday February 22, 2006
This port deal is not a national security issue. It is an issue of this administration having a continuing problem with understanding how these things will play in the public's mind and not taking steps to set the stage so these things don't come as a shock and are presented in their worst possible light.
Let's try that again.
The Administration has no demonstrated capacity to brief allies on its activities so, when a public announcement is made, they have friends ready to explain to the public, either through or in spite of, the news media, what is really going on.
When the National Security Agency's intercept program became public, it was immediately called "domestic eavesdropping" or "domestic spying."
That went on for two weeks before the White House finally had the President refer to it as "terrorist surveillance."
As H.R. Haldeman was reported to have written atop memos he thought lacking: T-L-Squared.
Too little. Too late.
I have been watching this port thing develop over the past 72 hours and a common theme among Members of Congress is: We can't have foreign companies operate US ports.
Robert Menendez (D-NJ), according to the Liberal website Democratic Underground said, "We wouldn't turn the border patrol or the customs service over to a foreign government, and we can't afford to turn our ports over to one either."
This is the key to the problem. None of these goofballs knew that the ports of New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, and New Orleans were ALREADY run by a foreign-owned company.
The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, a British outfit, has the contract to operate these ports. P & O (as it is known to those of us well-schooled in the port-operations game) is being sold to another company - Dubai Ports World (DP World) which will take over P & O's existing contracts.
All right, so this deal, which has been known to the financial community since November, gets approved by one of those alphabet commissions which happens to involve SIX Cabinet Departments including Treasury, State, Homeland Security, Commerce, and Justice; which they did.
But the Administration didn't think it was necessary to lay the groundwork for the announcement the other day that the sale of one foreign company to another foreign company had been approved.
So, the cable news programming geniuses have been talking about the US outsourcing "port security" to Dubai.
This is like saying the company which operates your local airport - which is to say it decides how much you pay for parking and where in the terminal the Starbucks will be located - is responsible for airline security.
It isn't.
Nor will DP World be responsible for port security. That remains with Customs and the Coast Guard.
The reason the President bristled about this today is because he doesn't think he deserves to be doubted on his commitment to the national security.
It is one thing for Chuck Schumer or Hillary Clinton to complain. It is something else again for Dennis Hastert or Bill Frist to doubt whether the President is strong enough on terrorism.
The Left has been wailing about George W. Bush being, if anything, TOO aggressive on his anti-terrorism efforts using the NSA intercepts as their example. Now those same people are complaining the President is not being tough enough.
Want to know what's really behind all this?
It's an even numbered year and we are 253 days from election day.
It's not about port security; It's about incumbent security.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today:
A link to the Fox News summary of the issue written largely by Major Garrett; http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185479,00.html
A link to a history of P & O (which is pretty interesting); http://portal.pohub.com/portal/page?_pageid=71,212168&_dad=pogprtl&_schema=POGPRTL
A link to a history of DP World (which is less interesting, but includes a listing of all the countries in which they do this kind of work); http://www.dpiterminals.com/subpages.asp?PSID=1&PageID=21
a Mullfoto showing how I was showered with affection during my trip to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; and a Catchy Caption of the Day. http://www.mullings.com/dr_02-22-06.htm
243 posted on 02/22/2006 12:56:10 AM EST by Matchett-PI
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1583067/posts?page=243#243
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1583191/posts?page=30#30
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1583146/posts?page=255#255
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1582942/posts?page=2412#2412
"... its beyond me how they didn't see this one coming...." ~ goldstategop
See my post #85, here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1583265/posts?page=85#85
You're right that the facts on this aren't out yet. That said, then how can you be for this deal without knowing the details?
On the plus side, thanks to this and Dick Cheney, nobody's telling Al Gore that he is 100% unelectable this week. Anything and everything that puts that inevitibility off for a year is positive in my book. Not that even the Democrats are stupid enough to nominate him again, but in the primaries he will force Senator Clinton to veer left, and that's a good thing.
Thanks for this. Sometimes I want to throw a bucket of ice water on FR.
I don't think this is equivilent to the Harriet Miers deal. The approval/disapproval of her was like 20/80. This is almost 50/50, at least by reading these threads.
Don't be a playa hayta. Don't hate, appreciate.
I can think of a few other adjectives to describe Savage in addition to embarrassment. Unfortunately, they would be deleted by the moderator.........
Exactly. You're welcome. But I think it's important that we get to see who they are who go off half-cocked and run with something before they have the facts.
Conventional wisdom - popular opinion - is practically never right, anyhow. People on FR - especially the old-timers - should be the first to know that.
I can't remember ever seeing so many professed Republicans rushing to align themselves with the likes of Hillary Clinton. What ever gave them the idea that she had our national security issues at heart? Was it when she smooched Mrs. Arafat? Much has been made of the fact that Jimmy Carter is with Bush on this one, but it's so out of character for Carter to praise anything Bush does, that I almost think someone is telling him to do this. More interestingly, Joe Lieberman, who is about the only Democrat I trust on national security is also with Bush. Where is the story about that? I can't find one.
No "thought" was involved - it was all knee-jerk "reaction". The mere fact that all the well-known hyenas were running in the same direction, should have been an immediate tip-off to stand back and watch until the dust settles. It always does...and the explanation always turns out to be, "follow the money".
Thanks for posting this.
Malkin already spanked this WSJ article.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1583539/posts
They don't have to "run" a port.... just tweak the right process just enough to get something dangerous in.
I agree political hay is being made here, but its hay that's going to play.
Uh.. no we don't... in fact I don't think the US even has a port management company at all.
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