President Promises Veto of Port Legislation, But Our UAE Source Supports Critics

By Andrew Cochran

The White House has started a full-court press to defend the purchase by UAE-controlled DP World of the British company which operates six U.S. ports. President Bush, flying on Air Force One this afternoon, promised to veto any legislation which would attempt to negate it. At today's Pentagon briefing, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and JCS Chairman Gen. Peter Pace strongly defended the UAE as a strong partner in U.S. military and counterterrorism efforts in the region. And during the press conference to discuss the indictment of three men in Ohio on terrorism support charges, Attorney General Gonzales noted that DHS port security procedures don't change regardless of port ownership. So the political battle is joined.

But a CT Blog fan, who once worked for DP World and still resides in the UAE, agrees with the critics who want to negate the deal. I quote from that person's e-mails to me today, with changes to protect the identity:

I've lived and worked here for years and have worked for this group. The employees I worked with ran the gamut of liberal to very conservative - understand? This deal should not, not, not have been approved. Typical of the current 1600 PA Ave folks, there has been no critical thinking applied to future ramifications. They continue to apply Western logic and judge everyone by those attending inside-the-beltway parties. This opens a door that we'll never be able to close. It's clearly a bad decision- raising my personal def con level to panic. If we the people don't win this one, the same folks who came calling in 2001 will completely understand our vulnerability - they are watching and listening.

My personal opinion: If we're going to engage in "business profiling" to prevent companies from Arab companies from buying national security-related assets, we might as well start "personal profiling" to keep Arab terrorists from penetrating our border and transportation security. It doesn't make sense to me to do one and not the other.

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