February 24, 2006
Lesson on the Perils of Secrecy
By E.
J. Dionne Jr.
WASHINGTON -- Americans owe a debt to Dubai Ports World for the
storm the company has created with its pending takeover of operations
at six U.S. seaports. Let us count the hypocrisies and the inconsistencies,
the blind spots and the oversights that this controversy has revealed.
Until this
fight broke out about a week ago, it was impossible to get anyone
but the experts to pay attention to the huge holes in the security
of our ports. Suddenly, everyone cares.
Most Americans
had no idea that our government's process of approving foreign
takeovers of American companies through the Committee on Foreign
Investment in the United States was entirely secret. When Rep.
John Sweeney, R-N.Y., asked Homeland Security Secretary Michael
Chertoff about the Dubai Ports deal at a hearing on Feb. 15, Chertoff
declined to answer because the committee's work was ``classified.''
Treasury Secretary John Snow told another congressional committee
that he was not permitted to discuss specific transactions considered
by the foreign investment panel.
Why shouldn't
the public have a right to know about the deliberations of this
inter-agency committee? Hasn't the secrecy surrounding this decision
aggravated the uproar it has caused?
Republicans
and conservatives would be aghast at the idea of our government
owning a company that operated at so many of our ports. That would
be -- just imagine! -- socialism. But Dubai Ports World is, well,
a socialist operation, a state-owned company in the United Arab
Emirates. Why is it bad for the federal government to own our
port operations, but OK for a foreign government?
And how
many of us knew before this week that foreign companies -- from
China, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Denmark -- were major operators
in 15 American ports? This may be just fine, the way the world
works these days. But we've never really talked about it, have
we?
President
Bush was his tough, swaggering self on Tuesday when he threatened
to veto any bill that would scuttle the port company takeover.
``They ought to look at the facts and understand the consequences
of what they're going to do,'' Bush told reporters.
But 24 hours
later, as opposition to the deal built, White House spokesman
Scott McClellan -- boy, I don't envy him his job these days --
said a president whose main calling card is his devotion to keeping
our nation secure hadn't paid any attention to this issue until
the past ``several days.'' In other words, a subject Bush displayed
such passion about the day before was also a subject he had just
learned about. Does this happen often?
It was helpful
to see an administration that often treats Congress as a mere
nuisance finally concede that Bush should have taken legislators
more seriously. ``We probably should have briefed members of Congress
sooner, " McClellan said. That McClellan was forced to speak
those words is something of a miracle.
Are some
opponents of this deal motivated by xenophobia? Of course, and
xenophobia is both wrong and dangerous. But it's also wrong to
dismiss every Democrat and every Republican who has raised questions
about this deal -- i.e., most members of both parties -- as either
a bigot or an opportunist.
On the contrary,
a process carried out in such secrecy and with so little accountability
deserved to be the subject of controversy. It is not irrational
for legislators and governors to ask questions about what this
deal means to security at six of our most important ports. What's
irrational is that the administration failed to anticipate how
many questions this deal would provoke.
What needs
to happen now is obvious. The high-powered lobbyists working for
Dubai Ports World should persuade the company to offer a postponement
of the takeover. Everything about the process through which this
deal was approved should then be made public. If the administration
claims that revealing certain details would hurt national security,
it should be required to brief Congress, including the strongest
opponents of the deal, on those aspects of the deliberations.
Then, let's
have a full-scale debate not only about this deal, but about the
larger flaws in our system of port security. That's the way to
show the world that Americans take this issue seriously and are
not engaged in an episode of Arab-bashing.
On Thursday,
President Bush insisted that the deal would leave our ports safe.
``People don't need to worry about security,'' he said. But many
people in both parties are worried because they no longer take
the administration's claims at face value. That, too, is progress.
©
2006, Washington Post Writers Group
