All sides turn on Bush over ports deal

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Sun, 26 Feb 2006 20:19:16 -0800 (PST)

All sides turn on Bush over ports deal

 

 

 

All sides turn on Bush over ports deal

 

From Russ Baker in New York

 

THE controversy engulfing the Republican Party over

the leasing of US port facilities to a Dubai company

is a reminder that reckless fear-mongering almost

always has a boomerang effect.

For the past four years, the GOP has had America in a

siege mentality about anything that can be labelled a

threat to national security. The government has urged

citizens to keep an eye on their neighbours and has

demanded library borrowing records. Americans have

grown accustomed to the ratcheting up of colour-coded

" alerts " that have not preceded actual acts of

terrorism but have heightened a sense of alarm.

Meanwhile, the country is embroiled in a tempest over

unauthorised domestic electronic surveillance

supposedly necessitated by imminent threats.

 

Now, the revelation that the Bush administration has

authorised Dubai Ports World (DPW), a United Arab

Emirates government-owned firm, to take over

management of facilities at key American ports has led

not just critics, but the administration's own

supporters, to turn on it. The takeover comes as part

of the purchase by DPW of British-owned ports terminal

operator P & O, which has long had a presence in Newark,

Miami, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Baltimore and

elsewhere.

 

Concerns centre on Dubai's professed sympathies for

some radical causes, including an endorsement by the

United Arab Emirates (of which Dubai is one) of the

Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, the

fact that two of the 9/11 hijackers were from the UAE

and the past role of the UAE as a money-laundering hub

for terrorists.

 

Still, few actually believe that DPW or the UAE

sultans would use a business venture as a Trojan horse

to attack Americans, who have been long-time allies.

Besides, port security itself stays in American hands.

 

 

But the apparently pro forma approval process by the

administration – without consulting Congress – has

Americans of all political stripes up in arms. Tough

statements by mayors and governors and a lawsuit filed

by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have

also piled on the pressure.

 

With their control of Congress threatened in this

year's elections, House and Senate Republicans cannot

afford to stand by the president on this. Moreover,

plenty of those Republicans have bought into the

president's state-of-fear oratory, and feel

discomfited by the recent developments.

 

As a result, the administration has been

backpedalling, while insisting the deal will still go

through. Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove, was

dispatched to the administration-friendly Fox News to

send the message that members of Congress would be

" fully briefed " before anything is finalised. DPW has

said it would not immediately exercise direct control

over the ports.

 

The ports conflict goes to the very issue the

administration sells to its political base: that it is

better than the Democrats at protecting Americans. As

with Hurricane Katrina, both Bush and the man

ostensibly in charge (in this case the Treasury

secretary, John Snow) claim they were out of the

decision-making loop. Nevertheless, Bush and his

family have long-standing and well-known personal and

business ties with the monarchies of the Gulf .

(According to the Associated Press, a UAE sheikh

contributed at least $1 million towards the building

of the George Bush Presidential Library.)

 

Meanwhile, both Snow and Bush's nominee for the job of

US maritime administrator have prior business

connections with DPW – an issue that has thus far

garnered minimal attention, but is typical of the

penchant of the Bush White House to install in

regulatory agencies people from the very industries

they are to oversee.

 

Lurking in the background are concerns about the

vulnerability of the US economy. That Americans have

increasingly ceded pieces of their country to

foreigners feels like a tacit admission of weakness,

even if it can be dressed up as a natural concomitant

of globalisation.

 

For Republicans, maintaining their majority in the

Senate and House is the paramount concern. If they

have their way, the public will not blame the

Republican Party; mid-level officials will take the

blame, and some diplomatic solution will surface.

 

But Bush may find that his Teflon coating has finally

worn off completely. And this could have ramifications

all the way to 2008, when his successor is chosen.

 

26 February 2006

 

http://www.sundayherald.com/54299