Port Deal Undone?

From CNN.com:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- United Arab Emirates-owned DP World said Thursday it would transfer its operations of American ports to a U.S. "entity" after congressional leaders reportedly told President Bush that the firm's takeover deal was essentially dead on Capitol Hill.

"Because of the strong relationship between the United Arab Emirates and the United States and to preserve that relationship ... DP World will transfer fully the U.S. operations of P&O Operations North America to a United States entity," Edward H. Bilkey, DP World's chief operating officer, said in a statement.

the announcement did not specify which U.S. company would be involved. (Read DP World's statement -- PDF)

The UAE firm's purchase of P&O, the British company that manages cargo and passenger terminals at several ports on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, has stirred up bipartisan opposition.
Unusually rancorous debate on the issue has split Bush from his GOP allies in Congress at a time when the president's approval ratings have plunged and midterm elections approach. (Read a timeline of the ports deal)

This is what I predicted would happen, and it is all for the best. The fact is that this was a bad deal for two reasons.

One, the American people just didn't want it and were unwilling to be shamed off of it by name calling. If the president had dug in his heels over it it would have had devastating consequences this November in the congressional elections. As things stand now no one will remember by November.

Two, the deal as originally constructed would have created too many security problems. I'm not saying that the UAE went into the deal in order to create an easy way to smuggle WMD's or terrorists or anything else into the US. The fact is that they were making a good business deal for no more mysterious motive than financial profit. However due to the circumstances in the UAE, where there is undeniably a pro-Islamist element at work, it was just too likely that someone in the management chain-of-command would have placed his deeply held religious convictions ahead of his bank account balance and cooperated with terrorists.

After all, it’s not like our ports aren't already under the effective control of organized crime. We keep hearing that the security at the ports is the responsibility of the Coast Guard and the Customs part of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). This is technically true in that they are the only law enforcement agencies present (the New Jersey state Port Authority doesn't even have police stationed at the port in Newark). However the Coast Guard’s only task is to protect the port from an attack from the sea. Customs is only there to inspect 2 out of every 100 cargo containers. All other security is the responsibility of rent-a-cops hired by the port management company. Couple this with the fact that the unloading of the ships is work done by members of the longshoremen’s union, the most corrupt in the nation, and you can see that it would not take massive terrorist penetration in DP World’s management to bring about a disaster for the United States.

Just one or two middle management types who believe that Allah wants them to help cripple The Great Satan spreading around some of Osama’s cash (he has hundreds of millions that we can’t trace because the UAE won’t let us see the records) could see a dirty bomb, nerve gas or an actual atomic bomb making its way into the interior of the nation.


UPDATE:


James Lewis shares his thoughts about the port deal in The American Thinker.


In the world of pure economics, the sale of US ports to Dubai makes perfect sense. That is because only economic motivations matter. Dubai could own the ports, operate them for profit if possible, and sell them to somebody else if they found a better place to put their money.

The trouble is that economics is not the total of human motivations.

[snip]

Is Dubai like the Soviets during the height of Communist imperialism? The Sheikhs are devout Wahhabis. It would be nice to think that they will become another Switzerland, mainly interested in economics. But we don’t know that.

The Sheikhs of Dubai have more than economic motives, just as Islamic immigrants streaming into Europe have more than economic motives.

They are pursuing imperialism through emigration. When Muammar Khadafi surrendered his secret nuclear program after the Iraq invasion, he said that in time, Muslim immigration would conquer the world in due time.