Security of US in danger via seaports

A toast to George Bush - may he rot in hell AND may his
armpits be infested with the fleas of 1000 camels. He's out of
office after this term, why should he give a damn what the
Americans think of him NOW?

Well, the article isn't so much about what Americans think of Bush (most don't think much of him, if polls count) - I think it's more to do with the Bush Adm phony 'war on terror'.

If they were serious they'd have spent $$ on seaport security, given that "material flowing through seaports is far larger" than what comes through airports.

Dubai Company Set to Run U.S. Ports Has Ties to Administration by Michael McAuliff

WASHINGTON - The Dubai firm that won Bush administration backing to run six U.S. ports has at least two ties to the White House.

One is Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose department heads the federal panel that signed off on the $6.8 billion sale of an English company to government-owned Dubai Ports World - giving it control of Manhattan's cruise ship terminal and Newark's container port.

Snow was chairman of the CSX rail firm that sold its own international port operations to DP World for $1.15 billion in 2004, the year after Snow left for President Bush's cabinet.

The other connection is David Sanborn, who runs DP World's European and Latin American operations and who was tapped by Bush last month to head the U.S. Maritime Administration.

The ties raised more concerns about the decision to give port control to a company owned by a nation linked to the Sept. 11 hijackers.

"The more you look at this deal, the more the deal is called into question," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who said the deal was rubber-stamped in advance - even before DP World formally agreed to buy London's P&O port company.

Besides operations in New York and Jersey, Dubai would also run port facilities in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Baltimore and Miami.

The political fallout over the deal only grows.

"It's particularly troubling that the United States would turn over its port security not only to a foreign company, but a state-owned one," said western New York's Rep. Tom Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee. Reynolds is responsible for helping Republicans keep their majority in the House.

Snow's Treasury Department runs the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which includes 11 other agencies.

"It always raises flags" when administration officials have ties to a firm, Rep. Vito Fossella, R-N.Y., said, but insisted that stopping the deal was more important.

The New York Daily News has learned that lawmakers also want to know if a detailed 45-day investigation should have been conducted instead of one that lasted no more than 25 days.

According to a 1993 congressional measure, the longer review is mandated when the company is owned by a foreign government and the purchase "could result in control of a person engaged in interstate commerce in the U.S. that could affect the national security of the U.S."

Congressional sources said the president has until March 2 to trigger that closer look.

"The most important thing is for someone to explain how this is consistent with our national security," Fossella said.
© 2006 KRT Wire and wire service sources

And the phony 'war on terrorism' -or the war against neo-globalists, continues.......

WASHINGTON (AP) - President George W. Bush sought Thursday to calm an uproar over a state-owned company in the United Arab Emirates taking over significant operations at six major U.S. ports, saying "people don't need to worry about security."

Under secret conditions of the agreement with the administration, the company promised to co-operate with U.S. investigations as a condition of the $6.8-billion US deal, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

However, the U.S. government chose not to impose other, routine restrictions.

"The more people learn about the transaction that has been scrutinized and approved by my government, the more they'll be comforted that our ports will be secure," Bush told reporters Thursday at the end of a cabinet meeting.

Bush said he was struck by the fact that people were not concerned about port security when a British company was running the port operation, but they felt differently about an Arab company at the helm. He said the United Arab Emirates was a valuable partner in the U.S. war on terror.

Critics in Congress have complained that London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which previously operated at those ports, is a publicly traded company while Dubai Ports World is effectively controlled by the government there.

The deal puts Dubai Ports in charge of major terminal operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.

Senator Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) have said they will introduce legislation to prohibit companies owned or controlled by foreign governments from running port operations in the United States.

Bush said his administration would continue talks with members of Congress - Republicans and Democrats alike - who have rebelled against the takeover. He said the briefings were "bringing a sense of calm to this issue."

"This wouldn't be going forward if we weren't certain our ports would be secure," the president said.

In approving the purchase, the administration chose not to require Dubai Ports to keep copies of its business records on U.S. soil, where they would be subject to orders by American courts. It also did not require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate requests by the government.

Outside legal experts said such obligations are routinely attached to U.S. approvals of foreign sales in other industries.

Dubai Ports agreed to give up records on demand about "foreign operational direction" of its business at the U.S. ports, according to the documents. Those records broadly include details about the design, maintenance or operation of ports and equipment. It also pledged to continue participating in programs to stop smuggling and detect illegal shipments of nuclear materials.

"They're not lax but they're not draconian," said James Lewis, a former U.S. official who worked on such agreements in the past.

The conditions over the sale were detailed in U.S. documents marked "confidential." Such records are regularly guarded as trade secrets, and it is highly unusual for them to be made public.

Representative Peter King (news, bio, voting record) of New York, Republican chairman of the House homeland security committee, said the conditions show evidence the Bush administration was concerned about security.

"(However) There is a very serious question as to why the records are not going to be maintained on American soil subject to American jurisdiction," King said.

Another critic, Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y) added: "These new revelations ask more questions than they answer."

Dubai Ports is lining up powerful supporters to persuade skeptical U.S. legislators the deal is a good idea. Even before the controversy erupted, the company had hired Bob Dole's law and lobbying firm, Alston & Bird LLC, to win approval for the deal. The Albright Group, led by former secretary of state Madeline Albright, also has been trying to speak with members of Congress.

Bush has pledged to veto any bill Congress might approve to block the agreement, but some legislators said they still were determined to block it.

Dubai Port's top American executive, chief operating officer Edward Bilkey, said he will work in Washington to persuade skeptical legislators to endorse the deal; several Senate oversight hearings already are scheduled.

"We're disappointed," Bilkey told The AP in an interview. "We're going to do our best to persuade them that they jumped the gun. The UAE is a very solid friend, as President Bush has said."

The White House has said Bush did not know about the agreement until recently. The AP first reported U.S. approval of the sale to Dubai Ports on Feb. 11, and many members of Congress have said they learned about it from that news report.

"I think somebody dropped the ball," said Representative Vito Fossella (news, bio, voting record) (R-N.Y). "Information should have flowed more freely and more quickly up into the White House. I think it has been mishandled in terms of coming forward with adequate information."

Oh, I see, silly me...it's all about MONEY. Should have figured that the US would place MONEY over security

Published on Thursday, February 23, 2006 by Inter Press Service
UAE, Jolted by Port Deal, Is Key Western Arms Buyer
by Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS - The United Arab Emirates (UAE), the center of a growing controversy over its proposed management of U.S. port terminals, is one of the world's most prolific arms buyers and a multi-billion-dollar military market both for the United States and Western Europe.

The energy-rich Persian Gulf nation is currently taking delivery of about 8.4 billion dollars worth of military equipment, mostly state-of-the-art fighter aircraft, ordered from the United States (6.4 billion) and France (two billion) over the last five years.

The delivery of 80 U.S.-built F-16 E/F fighter planes -- described as one of the biggest single arms packages to a Middle Eastern nation and finalized back in March 2000 -- is to be completed only in 2007.

U.S. President George W. Bush's threat to veto any attempts to block last week's deal permitting a state-owned UAE company to take over the management of six U.S. port terminals has underlined the significance of the political and military relationship between the two countries.

Despite growing bipartisan opposition to the deal -- mostly prompted by a fear-psychosis that U.S. ports should not be managed by a state-owned Arab company because of possible terrorist infiltration -- Bush says the UAE has been a strong U.S. ally in the fight against global terrorism.

He also sees no risk in a Middle Eastern company overseeing U.S. ports and shipping terminals despite potential terrorist threats.

But an equally significant fact in the longstanding bilateral relationship is that the UAE is a vibrant arms market not only for the United States but also its allies in Western Europe, particularly France and Britain.

"The UAE (arms) market is definitely important to the United States," says Tom Baranauskas, a senior Middle East analyst at the Connecticut-based Forecast International, a leading provider of defense market intelligence services.

"Just the order for 80 of the newest-generation F-16E/Fs" alone was a major buy from the United States, he said.

"Interestingly, there are already upgrades planned for these fighter planes even though they have not completed delivery," Baranauskas told IPS.

The upgrades and maintenance of the already delivered aircraft -- and proposed new arms purchases -- will have to be ensured only by a continued military relationship between the UAE and the United States.

But he also pointed out that the UAE military's procurement priorities are shifting, "and this shift may affect the U.S. competitiveness, and actually benefit Europeans more than the United States".

Besides French Mirage fighter planes, the UAE has also taken delivery of about 36 British Aerospace Hawk 100 trainer/ground attack aircraft, four warships from Germany, and two frigates from the Netherlands. Additionally, France has supplied about 400 battle tanks in a deal worth nearly 3.8 billion dollars.

With an armed force of only about 50,000 to 60,000 troops, the UAE is considered one of the world's best equipped militaries. A country which does not receive any U.S. military aid, the UAE pays hard currency for all its weapons purchases.

Projected orders for military equipment from the United States exceeded 650,000 dollars in 2005, with an anticipated increase to about 1.9 billion dollars in 2006, according to estimated figures released by the U.S. State Department in early February.

According to Forecast International, the UAE's military budget for 2006 is estimated at about 3.7 billion dollars, compared with 20.2 billion dollars by Saudi Arabia, the Middle Eastern nation with the largest single defence budget, followed by Israel (9.9 billion dollars), Iran (7.9 billion dollars) and Kuwait (4.9 billion dollars).

A country with the world's third largest oil reserves and the fifth largest gas reserves, the UAE has a per capita income of over 17,000 dollars, with oil accounting for 30 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and 75 percent of national revenues.

The unprecedented rise in oil prices in world markets -- from about 12 dollars per barrel in 1998 to 65 dollars last week -- has increased the purchasing power of countries such as the UAE.

Baranauskas said that "looking at the UAE inventory of weapons, particularly fighter planes, it is quite obvious that the Emirates does rely heavily on the U.S. as a source".

But it is also obvious that the UAE does not "put all its eggs in one basket" as evidenced by the procurement of French and British weapons systems.

"If I had to hazard a guess on the potential impact of the current imbroglio, there will be increased interest on the part of the UAE military to move to further arms source diversification" -- and away from relying too heavily on the United States.

"You could already see some UAE unhappiness over a failed deal to buy Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft due to the U.S. refusal to fully transfer Link-16 secure communications technology," he added.

The Europeans traditionally have been more willing to sell equipment without strictures, and well-equipped militaries with the wherewithal to buy high-tech equipment are not going to settle for systems that cannot be used to their full capabilities because the U.S. refuses to provide the full-up version, Baranauskas said.

"Yet, Israel usually gets such full-up versions. The double-standard here is noted and duly filed away in memory, to possibly rebound in a later competition," he added.