Port of
Entry
Frank Gaffney |
February 13, 2006 How
would you feel if, in the aftermath of 9/11, the U.S. government had
decided to contract out airport security to the United Arab Emirates
(UAE), the country where most of the operational planning and
financing of the attacks occurred? My guess is you, like most
Americans, would think it a lunatic idea, one that could clear the
way for still more terror in this country. You probably would
want to know who on earth approved such a plan -- and be determined
to prevent it from happening.
Of course, no such thing occurred after September 11, 2001
. In fact, the job of keeping our planes and the flying public
secure was deemed to be so important that the government itself took
it over from private contractors seen as insufficiently rigorous in
executing that responsibility.
Now, however, four-and-a-half years later, a secretive government
committee has decided to turn over the management of six of the
Nation's most important ports -- in New York, New Jersey,
Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore and New Orleans -- to Dubai Ports
World following the UAE company's purchase of London-based
Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which previously had
the contract.
This is not the first time this interagency panel -- called the
Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) -- has
made an astounding call about the transfer of control of
strategically sensitive U.S. assets to questionable
purchasers. In fact, as of last summer, CFIUS had, since its
creation in 1988, formally rejected only one of 1,530
transactions submitted for its review.
Such a record is hardly surprising given that the committee is
chaired by the Treasury Department, whose institutional
responsibilities include promoting foreign investment in the United
States. Treasury has rarely seen a foreign purchase of
American assets that it did not like. And this bias on the
part of the chairman of CFIUS has consistently skewed the results of
the panel's deliberations in favor of approving deals, even those
opposed by other, more national security-minded departments.
Thanks to the secrecy with which CFIUS operates, it is not clear
at this writing whether any such objection was heard with respect to
the idea of contracting out management of six of our country's most
important ports to a UAE company. There would certainly appear
to be a number of grounds for rejecting this initiative, however:
1) America 's seaports have long been recognized by homeland
security experts as among our most vulnerable targets. Huge
quantities of cargo move through them every day, much of it of
uncertain character and provenance, nearly all of it inadequately
monitored. Matters can only be made worse
by port managers who might conspire to bring in dangerous
containers, or simply look the other way when they arrive.
2) Entrusting information about key U.S. ports -- including,
presumably, government-approved plans for securing them, to say
nothing of the responsibility for controlling physical access to
these facilities, to a country known to have been penetrated by
terrorists is not just irresponsible. It is recklessly so.
3) At the risk of being politically incorrect, the proposed new
management will also complicate the job of assuring that the
personnel working in these ports pose no threat to their operations
-- or to the rest of us. To the extent that we must remain
particularly vigilant about young male Arab nationals as potential
terrorists, it makes no sense to provide legitimate grounds for such
individuals to be in and around some of this country's most
important strategic assets.
4) Of particular concern must be the implications for energy
security as a very large proportion of the Nation's oil imports come
through the Atlantic and Gulf State ports that the UAE company hopes
to take over. For example, Philadelphia alone handles some 85%
of the oil coming into the East Coast; New Orleans is responsible
for one-seventh of all of our imported energy.
Given such considerations, the question occurs: How could
even a stacked deck like the Committee on Foreign Investment in the
United States find it possible to approve the Dubai Ports World's
transaction?
Could it have been influenced by the fact that a former senior official of the UAE company, David
Sanborn, was recently named the new administrator of the
Transportation Department's Maritime
Administration? Until recently, Sanborn
was DP World's director of operations for Europe and Latin America.
Or is it because the U.S. government views -- and is determined
to portray -- the United Arab Emirates as a vital ally in this war
for the Free World? A similar determination has long caused
Washington to treat Saudi Arabia as a valued friend, even as the
Saudis continue playing a double game
whereby they work simultaneously to repress terrorism at home and
abet it abroad.
Whatever the explanation, the Nation can simply no longer afford
to have the disposition of strategic assets -- including those that
have a military or homeland security dimension -- determined by a
Treasury-dominated panel whose deliberations and decisions are made
in secret without congressional oversight.
Congress should see to it that the United Arab Emirates is not
entrusted with the operation of any American ports, and that the
Treasury Department is stripped of the lead role in evaluating such
dubious foreign investments in the United
States. |