Secret Deliberations Determined Decision to Sell Port Control to Dubai Co.

Secret Deliberations Determined Decision to Sell Port Control to Dubai Company
February 17th, 2006 @ 8:33 am

Last I heard security at our nation’s ports was an issue under the Bush administration. They like to claim that they are the National Security experts, but truth be told they are miserable failures at keeping us safe.

Following up on my piece yesterday on the issue of selling 6 of our major Ports to a company from Dubai, it’s absolutely astounding to me that the Bush administration has “has missed dozens of deadlines set by Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks for developing ways to protect airplanes, ships and railways from terrorists” and yet they can justify selling control of our Ports to “Dubai Ports World, a state-owned company in the United Arab Emirates.”

WaPo staff writer Paul Blustein reports that members of both parties of Congress are indignant over this deal:

“The management of major U.S. ports taken over by an Arab-owned company? What was the Bush administration thinking when it allowed such a thing?”

Quite frankly, they damn well should be. The decision to approve the deal was made by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), “a panel with representatives from 12 U.S. agencies that reviews foreign takeovers of U.S. companies or possible risks to national security.” As the WaPo notes, “the flap” over the deal “has some potentially major implications beyond the port security issue.” Could it be that part of “the flap” over this decision made by CFIUS, is due to the fact that CFIUS deliberates decisions like this “in secret.”

Ah, yes… yet another secret decision about our National Security brought to us by the most secretive administration in history. Normally CFIUS conducts a “45-day investigation on top of the initial 30-day review that it usually gives to foreign purchases of U.S. businesses”, but in this case they did not.

MORE & LINKS - http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1973

Of course it was done in secret!

to even discuss it. Very shocking, very scary.

Last line from an editorial today in NYTimes, re FISA "investigation":

"The last thing the nation needs is to amend the law to institutionalize the imperial powers Mr. Bush seized after 9/11."

I've been wondering what that DUBAI was I kept seeing on DU...

would you like to see two REAL Kerry goddesses?

check here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2462611&mesg_id=2462611