A company in the United Arab Emirates is poised to take over significant operations at six American ports as part of a corporate sale, leaving a country with ties to the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers with influence over a maritime industry considered vulnerable to terrorism.
The Bush administration considers the UAE an important ally in the fight against terrorism since the suicide hijackings and is not objecting to Dubai Ports World’s purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co.
The $6.8 billion sale could be approved Monday and would affect commercial port operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.
DP World said it won approval from a secretive U.S. government panel that considers security risks of foreign companies buying or investing in American industry. The U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States “thoroughly reviewed the potential transaction and concluded they had no objection,” the company said in a statement.
I have no problem with port operations being handed over the private companies, but I do question the wisdom of handing those operations over to a company that happens to originate from the one part of the world that is causing us the most headaches right now. Yes, the government of the the UAE is an ally, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people in the UAE who wouldn’t be inclined to assist al Qaeda in bringing over a shipping container or two of nerve gas if the opportunity arose.
Call me paranoid if you wish, but this is just nuts.
H/T: Rogue Sun
Technorati Tags: National Security, Homeland Security
