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I agree with you on this one.
Just another sunny day in San Diego?
White House Defends Port Operations Sale
AP - 13 minutes ago
WASHINGTONYahoo News- The Bush administration on Thursday rebuffed criticism about potential security risks of a $6.8 billion sale that gives a company in the United Arab Emirates control over significant operations at six major American ports.
Lawmakers asked the White House to reconsider the deal.
The sale to state-owned Dubai Ports World was "rigorously reviewed" by a U.S. committee that considers security threats when foreign companies seek to buy or invest in American industry, National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones said.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, run by the
Treasury Department, took into account an assessment from U.S. intelligence agencies. The committee's 12 members agreed the sale did not present any problems, the department said.
The public defense of the secretive committee, which reviews hundreds of such deals each year, came in response to criticism about the purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co.
We're talking about ports in New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, and New Orleans. We're also talking about a country where much of the planning & financing for 9-11 took place.
Watch the Democratic leadership cave in on this issue in 5.4.3.2.1.
Last edited by Nbadan; 02-17-2006 at 03:58 AM.
I agree with you on this one.
Actually, speaking of what if fill in the blank Democrat did such such, I was thinking.....
Vice President Gore would have resigned by now due to unrelenting crticisim from his right wing critics about this hunting "accident".
Democrats need to observe and learn. You have to give Cheney credit.
Basically he's saying "F you, I shot the guy, I talked about when I was damn good and ready and what are you gonna do about it?"
Didn't Clinton give his buddies from China some of the ports on the West Coast?
Nice to know that some things don't change, and that Emir is still firmly entrenched in Bush mouth. Like father, like son.
Last time I checked, none of the financing or planning for 9/11 took place in China....
This administration cracks me up.
Lawmakers Decry Ports Takeover, Chertoff Defends the Deal
February 19th, 2006 @ 11:11 pm
[QUOTE]Head of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has about as much credibility at this point as a gnat. Needless to say when he “defended the security review of Dubai Ports World” today, it’s a difficult stretch of the mind to trust a word he has to say on this. His record on Katrina speaks for itself.
Chertoff said the government typically builds in “certain conditions or requirements that the company has to agree to make sure we address the national security concerns.” But Chertoff declined to discuss specifics saying that information is classified.
“We make sure there are assurances in place, in general, sufficient to satisfy us that the deal is appropriatbloge from a national security standpoint,” Chertoff said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle (as noted here previously) are questioning the sale to DP World as a possible risk to national security. And then there is also the possible Bush cronyism connection.
Everyone should ingrane Mr. Chertoff's statement into their collective memories.
I wish Congress would grow a pair and act like the equal branch of the executive they are SUPPOSED TO BE! This is not an empire, GWB is not Caesar or King, he is the elected representative of the American people and as his boss, I want some explanation in a ING OVERSIGHT HEARING!!!!!!!!!!!!
I didn't say they did. Just pointing out his administration is as dumb as
this one is for doing a stupid thing. And it is stupid. Our ports should
stay in control of Americans period.
Clinton did not sell, I believe it was a Virginia Port, to China, the deal was proposed, but fell through.
Is Brit Hume in charge now or what? I mean....a guy that even Cheney has to answer too...think about it.
All you are belongs to me!
NEWSMAXThe Bush administration will reverse its decision to allow a Dubai company based in the United Arab Emirates to gain control over several key U.S. ports, the Fox News Channel's Brit Hume predicted on Sunday.
"I don't think the administration will be able to sustain this," Hume told "Fox News Sunday." "I think it will have to reverse itself in some way or create some en y that stands between the company and the management of the ports."
"I just don't think can stand," he added. "It doesn't sound good to let some Arab shieks to be in charge of our ports - that's what it comes down to."
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."
Check this poll out...
CNNIf the U.S. government is turning over operation of some major U.S. ports to a United Arab Emirates company and doing nothing to secure U.S. borders, should the Homeland Security Department be disbanded?
Yes - 90%
No - 10%
One thing I found out yesterday and did not know, a British firm is selling these
port operations to the group. Hmmmmm, wonder how long they have had
control of operations?
We're still talking about a long-standing ally, versus a coutry that can't secure their own borders.
Well the British are not known for being able to secure theirs very well. Don't believe
me go to London, Englishmen are an endangered species there.
Also the point I was trying to make was that control was in the hands of a
foreign company.
Yes, but the United Arab Emirates gives us two of the 19 hijakers on September 11th. The money used to finance this operation was washed through their base of operations, and nuclear concompents have been smuggled through their home ports.
This is who we want running SIX U.S. PORTS!?!!
^^Nope, I would prefer an American Company. How about Halliburton?
Good point.
The shrub family loves to such that Arab .
=================================
February 21, 2006
Bush Threatens to Veto Any Bill to Stop Port Takeover
By DAVID E. SANGER
and ERIC LIPTON
WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 — President Bush said this afternoon that he would veto any legislation seeking to block the administration's decision to allow a state-owned company from Dubai to assume control of port terminals in New York and other cities.
Mr. Bush's rare veto threat came as Republican leaders and many of their Democratic counterparts called up today for the port takeover to be put on hold. They demanded that the Bush administration conduct a further investigation of the Dubai company's acquisition of the British operator of the six American ports.
"After careful review by our government, I believe the transaction ought to go forward," Mr. Bush told reporters who were traveling with him on Air Force One to Washington, according to news agencies. "I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company.
( because the love the USA so much in the Middle East, dumb )
I am trying to conduct foreign policy now by saying to the people of the world, 'We'll treat you fairly." '
( We're equal opportunity country- er-uppers. Get in line, take a number )
The confrontation between Mr. Bush and his own supporters escalated rapidly after the Senate Republican leader, Bill Frist, and the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, joined Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Gov. George E. Pataki and a host of other Republicans in insisting that the transaction must be extensively reviewed, if not killed. That put them on essentially the same side of the issue as a chorus of Democrats, who have seized on the issue to argue that Mr. Bush was ignoring a potential security threat.
( Darth head is hovering in the background itching for a firefight with Congress in his campaign to emasculate Congress while removing all Cons utional restraints on the Executive )
The White House appeared stunned by the uprising, over a transaction that they considered routine — especially since China's biggest state-owned shipper runs major ports in the United States, as do a host of other foreign companies. Mr. Bush's aides defended their decision, saying the company, Dubai Ports World, which is owned by the United Arab Emirates, would have no control over security issues.
Some administration officials, refusing to be quoted by name, suggested that there was a whiff of racism in the objections to an Arab owner taking over the terminals.
( they would feel right at home on ST)
The current operator of the six American terminals, P&O Port, is owned by the British company that Dubai Ports World is acquiring. The ports include those in New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia, as well as New York.
Mr. Frist, in a rare break from the Bush administration, declared that "the decision to finalize this deal should be put on hold until the administration conducts a more extensive review of this matter."
He added, "If the administration cannot delay this process, I plan on introducing legislation to ensure that the deal is placed on hold until this decision gets a more thorough review."
Representative Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts and a persistent critic of the administration's actions on port security, said in an interview that "this is now a bipartisan posse chasing the president."
But firestorm of opposition to the deal drew a similarly intense expression of befuddlement by shipping industry and port experts.
The shipping business, they said, went global more than a decade ago and across the United States, foreign-based companies already control more than 30 percent of the port terminals.
That inventory includes APL Limited, which is controlled by the government of Singapore, and which operates terminals in Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle, and Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Globally, 24 of the top 25 ship terminal operators are foreign-based, meaning most of the containers sent to the United States leave terminals around the world that are operated by foreign government or foreign-based companies.
"This kind of reaction is totally illogical," said Philip Damas, research director at Drewry Shipping Consultants of London. "The location of the headquarters of a company in the age of globalism is irrelevant."
But the reasoning did not resonate in Washington, where members of Congress from every end of the political spectrum piled on to condemn the deal and to propose emergency legislation to block it if necessary.
"This sale will create an unacceptable risk to the security of our ports," Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton, joined by Senators Frank Lautenberg, Robert Menendez and Barbara Boxer said in a letter Tuesday. On Monday, the Republican governors of New York and Maryland raised the threat of legal action to void contracts at ports in New York City and Baltimore.
At the Pentagon today, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld praised the Arab country as an important strategic military partner.
"Nothing changes with respect to security under the contract," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "The Coast Guard is in charge of security, not the corporation."
"We all deal with the U.A.E. on a regular basis," he added. "It's a country that's been involved in the global war on terror."
( it was Saudi Arabian INDIVIDUALS, not SA, who attacked WTC )
The acquisition of the British port operator is scheduled to close on March 2. Governors George E. Pataki of New York and Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. of Maryland both said they would do what they could to stop the deal from going through.
Maria Newman contributed reporting from New York for this article.
* Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
Oh Well, Boutons there are no American companies doing that kind of business,
so I don't know who should get the job. I am sure you have nothing to worry
about, UAE isn't going to get it, although I think they take care of 18 percent of
of cargo worldwide, including China.
Then Jimmah Carter might defend it.What if a Democratic President Did This? (Port Sale)
The administration has been screaming 911!! 911!! so often, this time it may come back to bite them in the ass.
Jimmy is gonna run in 08 maybe...
No. I think Jimmy Carter is brilliant, a many with sincere spirituality who cares deeply for his common man and this country, but he is a horrible President. If he couldn't be a Democrat in the post-Nixon era, how is he ever going to Govern in this polarized climate today?
That's not even funny to joke about...
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