Dubai Company Won’t Be In Charge Of Port Security
From the Wall Street Journal:
That certainly puts things in a different perspective. I still believe this deal would benefit from a detailed review from Congress (assuming that body could conduct such a review without the process breaking down into self-serving diatribes and partisan point-scoring), but the idea that we aren't outsourcing security to a foreign corporation is reassuring.
This from the editorial is also worth nothing:
I'd say that right now this fact is being "conveniently ignored" more often than it is being forgotten.
...the notion that the Bush Administration is farming out port "security" to hostile Arab nations is alarmist nonsense. Dubai Ports World would be managing the commercial activities of these U.S. ports, not securing them. There's a difference. Port security falls to Coast Guard and U.S. Customs officials. "Nothing changes with respect to security under the contract," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday. "The Coast Guard is in charge of security, not the corporation."
In a telephone interview yesterday, Kristie Clemens of U.S. Customs and Border Protection elaborated that "Customs and Border Protection has the sole responsibility for the cargo processing and cargo security, incoming and outgoing. The port authority sets the guidelines for the entire port, and port operators have to follow those guidelines." Again, nothing in the pending deal would affect that arrangement.
That certainly puts things in a different perspective. I still believe this deal would benefit from a detailed review from Congress (assuming that body could conduct such a review without the process breaking down into self-serving diatribes and partisan point-scoring), but the idea that we aren't outsourcing security to a foreign corporation is reassuring.
This from the editorial is also worth nothing:
Critics also forget, or conveniently ignore, that the UAE government has been among the most helpful Arab countries in the war on terror. It was one of the first countries to join the U.S. container security initiative, which seeks to inspect cargo in foreign ports. The UAE has assisted in training security forces in Iraq, and at home it has worked hard to stem terrorist financing and WMD proliferation. UAE leaders are as much an al Qaeda target as Tony Blair.
I'd say that right now this fact is being "conveniently ignored" more often than it is being forgotten.
