Hard to Port

Confederate Yankee wonders if Bush is trying to show that he's judging people (and companies, and nations) by what they do, and not because of cultural stereotypes or the color of their skin (or religious affiliations). That's all well and good, but I still wonder about the level of review that was done.

The NY Sun, meanwhile, slams the group of NYC metro area politicians who have suddenly found a voice to come out against the Dubai Ports World deal, when they were silent over the UAE funding a professorship at Columbia that went to a radical anti-Semite, Rashid Khalidi. The same group was silent when the US agreed to sell 80 F-16 fighters to the UAE. The NY Sun did some digging and found that it's all about lobbying - and the money (which butresses my earlier assessment when the various politicians started coming together on the issue):

So what, one wonders, accounts for the sudden turnabout and interest of all these politicians in the UAE as a potential terrorist threat? The answer got a lot clearer yesterday afternoon when the International Longshoremen's Association, the AFL-CIO-affiliated union that represents workers at the six ports that would be affected by the Dubai deal, issued a statement praising the politicians complaining about the deal. The union's statement expressed "great concern" about the transaction. From there, it's easy to just follow the money - documented by The New York Sun's examination of Federal Election Commission records - from the political action committee of the International Longshoremen's Association into the pockets of the protesting politicians.

None of this means that the deal should or shouldn't go through, but we have to know where everyone is coming from on the deal. Was there proper scrutiny? I don't think there was based on what various state and local officials have said. If those concerns have been addressed satisfactorily, then the deal will probably go through despite the posturing from the likes of Clinton, Schumer, King, et al.

Big Lizards offers a modest solution to diffuse the problems from both angles, which essentially entails creating a US subsidiary to the Dubai Ports World that would be a wholly American enterprise, so that all the actual management of the ports be handled by the American APS, not by Dubai Ports.

Once again, the Democrats have overreacted, demanding death to the deal, when in fact we can address the real and sincere threats without having to pull the beard of a long-time ally in the war effort. As Dubai Ports has already agreed to "whatever security precautions the U.S. government demanded to salvage the deal," they should be willing to sign off on being a holding company, rather than the actual operator, which will be "American Port Services," or whatever they decide to call it.

All sides will be satisfied, and we can then proceed with the deal.

That seems reasonable enough. While he also addresses a number of other issues, he didn't address the lobbying efforts on the part of longshoremen to oppose this deal.

Flopping Aces notes that the same folks who wont let screeners profile folks from the Middle East are now against the ports deal in what appears to be another case of profiling. Good point.

UPDATE:
Jim Geraghty offers a counter to Malkin's view on the ports deal. They're both must reads on the subject.

UPDATE:
Rick Moran at RightWingNutHouse views the problem as one of atmospherics:

So what’s the problem? The problem is in the atmospherics of this deal.

The problem is with the tone deaf bureaucrats of CFIUS who okayed this deal in the first place. They may have gotten some DoD flunky to vote for it in Committee but not bothering to brief the Secretary of Defense or the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff about it only contributes to the notion that they are not taking port security very seriously.

The problem is with the incompetence (or arrogance) of the supposedly vaunted White House political operation in treating this deal like a routine transaction when the involvement of a Middle Eastern country whose toleration and support for the Wahhabi brand of Islam was sure to cause trouble on the Hill. Then there’s also the minor matter involving the UAE being a banking Mecca for terrorism. I find it more than a little ironic that monies we’re pouring into the banking system of that country could be used to plan and carry out attacks against our own country.

The problem was in not recognizing that the deal would give your ravenous and out of control enemies on the left and in the press a great big T-Bone steak of an issue to chew on in the immediate aftermath of the Cheney debacle. These are people who were gnawing on your leg while bodies were still floating in the floodwaters of New Orleans. Just what in God’s name were they thinking?

The problem is that given the lukewarm response of our government to the cartoon jihad, the President’s strongest and most vocal supporters would see this deal as one more nod, one more cave-in to Muslim sensibilities rather than the good business deal it almost certainly is. Taking the base for granted in anything is bad politics. In this case, it demonstrates an ineptness that would be troubling if we weren’t getting used to it by now.

Finally, the problem is President Bush. One of the major reasons we went to war in Iraq and have sacrificed so much was based on the idea – a good one – that after 9/11 we couldn’t take the chance that Saddam would make common cause with al Qaeda and supply them with weapons of mass destruction. It wasn’t important how likely that possibility was at the time. The point was that we just couldn’t take the chance.

Good points, one and all.

UPDATE:
Cassandra has two items that I haven't seen elsewhere. The first is that the kerfuffle broke out when negotiations turned sour and a Florida firm that is a partner with P&O in Miami, Continental Stevedoring and Terminals Inc., filed a suit to block the purchase. The second point is that the UAE is a major US Navy port in the Persian Gulf, and killing this deal may hamper efforts into the future.

The United Arab Emirates provides docking rights for more U.S. Navy ships than any other nation in the region, Warner noted. He added: "If they say they have not been treated fairly in this, we run the risk of them pulling back some of that support at a critical time of the war."

Food for thought.

Oh, and Gov. Corzine is planning to sue.

UPDATE:
The Administration had a secret deal with Dubai Ports World before this whole thing broke?

The Bush administration secretly required a company in the United Arab Emirates to cooperate with future U.S. investigations before approving its takeover of operations at six American ports, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. It chose not to impose other, routine restrictions.

As part of the $6.8 billion purchase, state-owned Dubai Ports World agreed to reveal records on demand about "foreign operational direction" of its business at U.S. ports, the documents said. Those records broadly include details about the design, maintenance or operation of ports and equipment.

The administration did not require Dubai Ports to keep copies of business records on U.S. soil, where they would be subject to court orders. It also did not require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate U.S. government requests. Outside legal experts said such obligations are routinely attached to U.S. approvals of foreign sales in other industries.

"They're not lax but they're not draconian," said James Lewis, a former U.S. official who worked on such agreements. If officials had predicted the firestorm of criticism over the deal, Lewis said, "they might have made them sound harder."

This could explain why the Administration has been so adamant about having done security reviews and conducted a thorough review, but the way the Administration handled this whole situation has been poor.

I doubt these revelations will lessen the storm of controversy over the deal, but for those who thought that this whole thing was much ado about nothing, and those who thought that they could trust the Administration on security matters appear to have had their faith rewarded.

It still doesn't explain how or why local law enforcement agencies were not consulted, nor do the agreements necessarily provide local and federal prosecutors access to information:

It said Dubai Ports must retain paperwork "in the normal course of business" but did not specify a time period or require corporate records to be housed in the United States. Outside experts familiar with such agreements said such provisions are routine in other cases.

That has the potential to have significant repercussions should there be a problem - the ability to forensically examine documents for various criminal activities depends on having access to documents. If they're not in the jurisdiction, your ability to discover them becomes more difficult.

Technorati: port security, port authority, dubai, national security, foreign investment.