Dubai Ports World and the Political Scramble

Want another reason to hate politicians? (Like you need one.) The scramble to amend some form of legislation to force the president to shut down the Dubai Ports World deal is the perfect example of how legislation shouldn't be done.

Lawmakers took their first formal steps toward killing Dubai Ports World'’s acquisition of management operations at six major U.S. ports Wednesday when the House Appropriations Committee added a measure to a must-pass war funding bill that would block the deal. The vote was 62 to 2, with only Reps. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., and James Moran Jr., D-Va., opposing it. A full House vote on the bill is expected to pass overwhelmingly next week.

The Senate saw its first skirmish on the issue when Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., moved to amend a lobbying reform bill with a measure that would also scuttle the acquisition. That brought Senate progress on the lobbying bill to a halt, as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., objected to what he described as a blatant violation of Senate rules on the Democrats'’ part. Frist vowed to use parliamentary tactics to block a vote on Schumer'’s proposal, but Democrats made it clear they were not letting the matter go away.

Note that the whole mess is pretty much a bipartisan fuster cluck. The race to who can appear to be the most knee-jerk reactionist has begun. And the President being such a sophisticated media operator is pretty much doing nothing.

"“The broader issue at work here is the public'’s continuing concerns over 9/11, Iraq and all things Middle Eastern as a result," said Rep. Michael Castle, R-Del. "As this played out across the country, I don'’t think there was a whole lot of distinction going on between the UAE and any other country."

Add to that the president'’s rock-bottom approval ratings and there may have been little the White House could do to beat back the issue.

"I've literally had senior citizens, little old ladies, calling my office crying about their concern,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., told administration officials recently.

The politicians are certainly helping with providing information as to what the real security concern is. They keep talking about 'out-sourcing' security, even though they have been told very clearly that the port terminal operators will not, and never have had, a say in port security. But both sides would rather play the fear card rather than the information card. And the MSM isn't helping at all. Lots of discussion of the politics, but no facts on who actually does what for security in a port.

Here are some quotes that I found. This first by Kevin McCabe (U.S. Customs and Border Security)

U.S. government agencies do and will continue to handle security checks of all port personnel. “We are not about to waver on something as fundamental as port security,” Chief Kevin McCabe, the top U.S. Customs and Border Protection office in charge of the Port of Newark told me.

If DPW starts sending UAE or other Arab nationals into the United States to work in the ports, they will have to go through numerous security checks -– just as any foreign nationals coming to the United States to work in a port would incur. "“Just because you'’re an Arab, doesn'’t mean you'’re a terrorist,"” McCabe said.

Then there's this:

At least 90 terminals at America'’s largest ports are today operated by foreign companies, according to an excellent survey by the Washington Times that appeared on Feb. 22. The largest operators are China Ocean shipping Company, APM Terminals (Denmark), APL (Singapore), Hanjin Shipping (South Korea), and three Japanese companies, Kawasaki, Kisen, Kaisha Ltd, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, and Ceres Terminals.

We may not like this foreign ownership of our container terminals. Indeed, Kevin Kearns, whose U.S. Business and Industrial Council represents thousands of small and mid-sized U.S. businesses, believes Congress needs to walk back the foreign terminal agreements so we can "“take back control of our ports."” USBIC has been arguing for years that we need real national security controls on the sale of U.S. businesses unless we want our entire industrial base to be “hollowed out.”

Senator Jim Inhofe has sponsored legislation -– S.1797 -– that moves in this direction by extending the CFIUS review period and mandating greater transparency and Congressional oversight.

But the question of foreign ownership of container terminals is a long-term industrial base problem more than an immediate national security problem.

Personally, I think this critical infrastructure shouldn't be in the hands of any foreign entity. But that doesn't change the security measures now in place.

The U.S. Coast Guard, in tandem with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the local ports authorities, handles security at U.S. ports. As one senior Department of Homeland Security official told me yesterday, “This deal presents no practical vulnerability. Why? I've got ships, and I've got guns. If I say that a terminal operator is not getting a cargo, he is not getting that cargo.”

Someone also needs to educate the public on the Container Security Initiative. There isn't a lot of detail on methods to be informed about, but that makes some sense in limiting how terrorists will plan to dodge security.

The legislation that we're seeing now is pretty much a waste of time. It's not taking responsible steps to understand the options or what the security measures are for these ports. The knee-jerk reactions by all affiliations of politicians is just shameful.