(Jack) Carter: UAE deal "tertiary" to general GOP neglect of port security

Feb. 23, 2006

Following up on the Daily Glean, we shot an e-mail to Jack Carter under the subject line, "port deal--for or against" and it went like this: "Your father appears to be the only person openly supporting Bush on this ports deal, and Ensign opposes it, which raises the question, what's your position?"

Carter's e-mailed response:

"It is through our ports that nuclear or chemical weapons of mass destruction are likely to enter. Therefore, port security is one of the key provisions of any real homeland security package. Such a program should insure inspection of ships and containers that enter a port -- only about 5% are currently checked. A second consideration is verifying the identity of the employees, drivers, and other persons with access to our ports. The Bush administration has done virtually nothing on either of these matters. My opponent has supported their lack of effort.

"Apparently, the tax cut for the wealthy that has become its hallmark has made it difficult to cut enough from our poor, our veterans, and our elderly to fund real homeland security efforts at our ports. As a result, today's news -- the foreign operation of our ports -- has served to focus attention on the far more grievous omissions of security involving the lack of inspection or verification of the ports users. It provides a political opportunity for my opponent to be, for once, against his administration on this tertiary issue. Meanwhile, he continues to provide support for the major failures of this administration's port security (non-)policy."

Though he might get hammered for saying so, Carter is right -- the UAE deal is secondary -- maybe even "tertiary" -- to the larger issue of Bush's neglect of port security. Though they've tried, Kerry and other Democrats have never been able to make the security issue connect with voters. Now they're trying to capitalize on, as Carter put it, "today's news."

more...

http://www.lasvegasgleaner.com/las_vegas_gleaner/2006/02/carter_uae_deal.html

knows that in the debates and in every speech (practically), Kerry spoke of the ports as a very big risk - mentioning that only 5% of the containers were inspected.

After 911, the Democrats were in charge of the Senate, Hollings and every one on the commerce committe worked to pass the Maritine Act that sought to make the ports safer. Many Democrats made contributions: Edwards had an amendment to fund technology to make inspections better, Kerry and Breaux from their positions on the Fisheries (which has the coast Guard) and Ground transportation subcommittes increased what the Coast Guard could do. They also allocated money to fix this.

Last year, Kerry got an amendment passed that forced the inspector General to audit how the grant money was spent. Nearly 80% of what was allocated since 2002 wasn't spent by the administration and most of what was spent was for inappropriate projects (I think only 2 out of over 80 were justified).

The article is right in saying the Democrats didn't connect on this - but could it be that the media didn't cover what they were saying. You can't hear what isn't said on TV.

until there is a catastrophic event in a marine terminal. And the catastrophic event has to be clearly, obviously, and unambiguously the direct result of terror, sabotage, or an easy to understand and explain violation of the cargo safety laws (Texas City explosion or Concord-Port Chicago Explosion).

Nor is it an "either/or" proposition. Shut it down, NOW! And deal with the other port INsecurities after. Or deal with them all now, just make sure the Dubai deal fails.