.
Unbelievable, this has been an option for some weeks now, this is the first criticism I read in the U.S. Media.
As I have repeatedly made clear, the next attack on the U.S. is being planned and success depends on American foreign policy to quell anti-American hatred across the globe. Now the U.S. is permitting Arab control of US port facilities. I know Dubai fairly well and have enough personal adventures to fill a book.
To be clear, the 911 attacks were perpetrated by Al Qaeda and facilitated by nationals from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE made possible the illegal sale of Saddam’s oil during the nineties and made hundreds of millions in profits.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) Feb. 19 — 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.
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.
Michael Chertoff defended the U.S. security review of DP World in various television interviews Sunday.
“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.
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.
“No matter what steps the administration claims it has secretly taken, it is an unacceptable risk to turn control of our ports over to a foreign government,” Menendez said in a statement.
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, however, considers Dubai and the UAE a solid ally in its campaign against terrorism.
The UAE company would control management of major ports in New York and New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Miami.
An United Arab Emirates company's takeover of six American ports has officials at odd over U.S. security concerns. AP Photo
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
