Monday, February 20, 2006

 

Arabs to Operate 6 major U.S. Ports


Some members of Congress seem to think there is a security risk in letting an Arab country run our ports. This overlooks a number a mitigating factors. First, the country is the United Arab Emirates, a loose federation of seven emirs, tribal heads that run the place, not Iran or Saudi Arabia. Sure, the 9-11 hijackers entered the U.S. via the U.A.E., as did much of the funds supporting their operation, but everything in the area goes through Dubai. Only two of the hijackers were actually from there.

Second, the Emirs are not directly involved. They own Dubai Ports World, the company authorized to take over the ports, which is buying a British company, Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation (P&O) to actually run the ports. And P&O already runs some U.S. operations, so you see, we already have a foreign government (British) involved in our port operations. Note that Dubai has never invaded the U.S., or burned the White House. In fact, P&O runs over 100 ports worldwide, including many in England, so the English will have their ports run by the Arabs also, clearly spreading the risk.


Even more important, the purchase of P&O by the Arabs has been approved by the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). All the cabinet secretaries are represented, even Michael Chertoff of Homeland Security. If you can't trust Homeland Security, who can you trust? PLUS, and get this, the panel has done due diligence, and, as Chertoff told ABC's "This Week":
"We make sure there are assurances in place, in general, sufficient to satisfy us that the deal is appropriate from a national security standpoint".

Mr. Chertoff was naturally unable to elucidate, since the information is classified, just like the due diligence, which was secret too. So you already have a good bit of security.


The DP web site is clearly friendly, and besides detail views and virtual tours of the Jebel Ali and Port Rahid ports (above left), even has a kids zone. Unfortunately no detail maps of U.S. ports have yet been added, but with the detail you can click down to, will be very handy when they are.

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