[Dialogue] The Dubai Ports Deal

[Harry Wainwright]

 <http://www.nytimes.com/> The New York Times <http://www.nytimes.com/> 




  _____  

March 2, 2006

Editorial

The Dubai Ports Deal 

President Bush is not doing any favors for America's Arab allies with his
attitude toward the deal that would put a Dubai state-owned company in
control of operations at terminals within six American ports. The
administration initially stonewalled Congress when lawmakers demanded more
information. Now that the company, Dubai Ports World, has wisely agreed to a
45-day review of potential security risks, the White House seems to feel
that all it's required to do is lobby recalcitrant Republicans and "educate"
the public about the rightness of the original decision.

The president can't get away with his usual "trust me" mantra now that
Congress and the public have emphatically declared they don't believe that
the administration's key committee in approving the takeover exercised
appropriate care. Legitimate security questions have been raised that can be
answered only by a genuinely fresh evaluation whose scope and results are
transmitted to Congress and to a perplexed public as well.

At this point there is little hard evidence that Dubai Ports World is
especially vulnerable to infiltration by terrorists or lax on security. The
company's home country, United Arab Emirates, has rightly been blistered in
the past for taking inadequate steps to close down terrorist financing and
stop a renegade Pakistani scientist from shipping nuclear technology to
rogue nations. But in recent years, the country seems to have cooperated
with American efforts in the war on terror, and it was one of the first to
join American efforts to check containers abroad for dangerous weapons
before they are loaded onto ships headed for the United States.

That doesn't mean Congress is being irrational in wanting a closer look. The
deal was approved by an obscure committee of second-level officials. The
committee is headed by a Treasury official whose department focuses on
promoting trade rather than on security requirements. When concerns were
raised, they were never flagged for higher-ups. And the committee itself may
never have been warned that the Coast Guard was initially worried that gaps
in intelligence made it impossible to assess the potential threat of
terrorist operations through the Dubai company. 

There are also unverified reports of other misgivings among committee
members that were somehow ironed out behind the scenes. If the new review
does nothing else, it needs to inject greater transparency into this whole
process. 

The president's supporters keep trying to brand all resistance to the deal
as anti-Arab, but if the controversy is treated correctly, it should provide
new security benchmarks that could be applied to any company that wishes to
manage American ports. (The Coast Guard expressed concerns about
intelligence even when a British company held the terminals contract.) A
serious inquiry could also provide a basis for ensuring that port security,
a notoriously weak spot in the nation's defenses against terrorism, is
actually enhanced. The deal's opponents ought to use this opportunity to
negotiate for additional, and much needed, financing for that purpose.

 

*	Copyright
<http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html>  2006The New
York Times Company <http://www.nytco.com/> 

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