Richardson Lynn, the Dean of the John Marshall Law School, takes Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to task for saying that ""We've got to have a legal system that lets us . . . prevent things from happening rather than . . . reacting after the fact." Lynn responds:

No, actually, we don't.

There are countries with such a legal system, and we would not want to live in any of them: Syria, Iran, North Korea -- name your favorite axis of evil.

The only kind of legal system that could "prevent things from happening" requires a highly intrusive program of government surveillance of all communications (e-mail, letters and phone calls) and financial transactions of private citizens, incentives for people to spy on neighbors or family members, and lifting all restraints on interrogation and investigation of suspects.

If you don't have all three, it won't work. If Chertoff is willing to preserve some features of an open society in Patriot Acts II-IV, the new legal system will not prevent all things from happening. [snip]

The horror of losing friends and loved ones in the inexplicable violence of terrorism is surely one of our deepest fears. But someone has to say: There are worse things.

The politician who says that restrictions on liberty are justified "if even one life is saved" cannot be taken seriously. We constantly make public policy decisions by carefully balancing risk in favor of the greater good. On balance, the slight risk of massive loss through a successful attack is outweighed by the freedoms that are our natural right. It is entirely rational to accept some level of terrorism, crime or disorder rather than live in a police state that claims to guarantee perfect safety.

Lynn's basic argument about respecting civil liberties is fine, so far as it goes, but his beef against Chertoff is vastly overblown and it's is tinged with the type of purist civil libertarian claptrap that infuriates me. America is not now, nor will it ever be a "police state." Nor have our personal freedoms been diminished in any significant way since 9/11.

What we have tried to do, in the wake of watching 3,000 of our innocent fellow citizens incinerated before our very eyes five years ago, is to try and find ways of protecting ourselves against foreign and domestic terrorist threats. It seems to me we've done so with a great deal of respect and attention to civil liberties - even though the process has been awkward and clumsy at times. Our first reaction was a swift dose of common-sense: tear down the wall between intelligence agencies and let them communicate, and give them the same tools to track terrorists that they currently have to track mobsters and drug dealers.

But, yes, we also eventually ended up with a dorky, color-coded alert system that means virtually nothing to the average American and thousands more government employees who stand around at airports offering little additional protection. And, out of a respect for civil libertires - or more accurately the perception of civil liberties in America - we've been unable to bring ourselves to profile the rather well-defined group of people who constitute the greatest potential threat (statistically speaking) to our free society.

I think John mentioned this a while back, but it's worth repeating again: Civil libertarians who've been berating the President and bemoaning the relatively mild measures that have been taken to protect the country over the last five years are going to find themselves in a very tough spot if the country suffers another devastating attack.

Let's hope Dean Lynn remembers to teach his students that while it's absolutely right to cherish and defend civil liberties, the Constitution is not a suicide pact.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 07:25 AM | Email Author | Permalink

A reporter from the Seattle Times rides along, undetected, in and out of the supposedly secure areas of ports in both Seattle and Long Beach, CA.

Granted, securing points of entry from the land-side of U.S. ports has been less of a priority than trying to secure points of origin and to inspect cargo containers that are making their way to U.S. ports from around the world. Still, the Seattle Times article demonstrates we still have some significant vulnerabilities in port security and as I'm sure we have at thousands of other soft targets around the country.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 10:33 AM | Email Author | Permalink

I stumbled across this local story which is both heartening and depressing at the same time. Local police officers have been training in Israel, learning tactics to beef up homeland security:

They saw security measures in action at Israeli schools, ports, malls and power plants, and even came within 3 miles of missile attacks.

Israel has experienced nearly 10,000 terrorist attacks in the past decade, they said, although the country has clamped down and now thwarts an estimated 91 percent of suicide bombs. [snip]

The three men talked Wednesday on how Israeli security tactics were becoming more relevant to American communities. The group said that some lessons learned in Israel would show up at local festivals and venues.

"There will be things that people won't see or be touched by, but operational tactics that could be helpful," Laine said.

Urban said it was enlightening that even a large mall that sees as many as 16,000 cars a day could search each of the cars for bombs and each of the customers' bags once inside.

While sporting events in the United States require security checks of visitors, Americans largely remain free to come and go. That lifestyle might be curtailed eventually, Urban said, and residents should open their minds to that looming change.

"It's not a question of if it's going to happen," he said, "but more of when and to what extent."

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Americans readily accepted longer lines and fortified security measures, Laine said.

"But over time, it has become a frustration for people because they have forgotten what happened to our country," Laine said. "There's a prevailing feeling that we're immune again."

I think I might take issue with that last line. While I agree with the officer that public complancency about the nature of the terrorist threat we face, in general, has grown as we've moved farther away from September 11, most of the polling I can recall doesn't indicate a feeling that the public feels "immune" to terrorist attacks. If I remember correctly, when asked about the likelihood of another terrorist attack in the U.S. in the next 6-12 months, a decent sized majority still responds that an attack is either "very" or "somewhat" likely. Obviously, that number has dropped as we've moved further away from 9/11 as well, and it will continue to slide as long we remain free of another attack, but we're still a long way from most people feeling we're "immune" from terrorism. In fact, it seems fanciful to think we'll ever truly feel that way again.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 02:36 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Sobering email from a reader in Montreal responding to my post this morning on border security and Canada's passivity toward Islamic radicals:

As someone with close friends who work in the Canadian refugee system, I can tell you with great assurance that you're correct to worry about Canada's chronic laxity in regards to Islamic radicals and other foreign militants on Canadian soil. If anything, it's almost worse than you describe, since it's become an institutional problem, and not just a purely political one.

It will be very difficult - politically, legally and logistically - for Canada to remedy this state of affairs. Even the Stephen Harper government, with all the best intentions - and I have no doubt he shares these concerns and takes them seriously, far more so than his liberal predecessors - will find it difficult to do, particularly while he is constrained by his government's minority status. I suspect it will take a crisis to create the conditions for dealing adequately with the problem.

Let's hope not.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 06:27 PM | Email Author | Permalink

The Houston Chronicle reports on border security - with Canada:

Only one terrorist has been caught crossing the U.S. border with explosives and a detailed plot to harm Americans. He came through Canada. [snip]

The United States has only 1,000 agents to patrol the 4,000-mile northern border, compared with 10,000 agents monitoring less than half the distance along the Mexican border, U.S. officials say.

This is a subject I touched on last November when a number of elected officials in the Republican Party made inaccurate and/or unsubstantiated claims about al-Qaeda operatives having crossed our Southern border ( see here, here, and here).

Obviously, the flow of illegal immigrants across the Southern border is massive and represents a serious problem for the United States as well as a potential threat to national security. But the greater threat to U.S. national security is the unsecured border with Canada.

There are a number of reasons for this. First, the border with Canada, as noted above, is much longer and less well manned than the one with Mexico.

Another reason is the mentality of the United States government toward the Northern border. Awhile back I asked a good friend of mine who manages the North American operations for a Fortune 100 transportation company how easy it would be for al-Qaeda to put a nuke in the back of an eighteen-wheeler, hire a Mexican to drive it across the Southern border, park it in downtown Los Angeles and walk away. He said it would be much harder than I thought, and his explanation surprised me.

Our approach to the Southern border for the last four decades has been based on a strategy of interdiction: stopping the flow of drugs and immigrants. We've become quite good at it (despite being overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the task) and the various bureaucracies that have bloomed as part of the effort now provide a level of redundancy that most people don't realize. For example, we have a number of different agencies working on the Southern border (though probably not with the level of coordination we'd like) performing their own regulatory and/or security-related functions: Customs, DOT, ATF, DEA, and others, as well as Border Patrol.

Conversely, our approach to the border with Canada for decades has primarily revolved around commerce and making it easier for goods (and people) to flow back and forth across the border. Again, we've gotten pretty good at the job of streamlining the process. Most of this has been done in the context of working with large, reputable companies who have their own security protocols and safeguards, but the larger point is that we've had a vastly different mentality, and taken a much different strategic approach with our border with Canada over the years.

The final, and perhaps most important reason the border with Canada is a greater national security threat to the United States than the border with Mexico is the mentality of the Canadian government toward Islamic radicals and al-Qaeda-type operatives over the years. Ahmed Ressam (aka The Millennium Bomber), the Algerian-born al-Qaeda operative caught crossing the U.S.-Canadian border in December 1999, is but one example. In his book Disinformation, Richard Miniter quotes author and National Post columnist Stewart Bell who has written extensively about Canadian connections to terrorist attacks, including the 1993 attacks on the World Trade Center, the 2002 Bali bombing, and the 2003 bombings in Riyadh. Bell writes:

The list of specific government failures is extensive, from an immigration system seemingly incapable of deporting even known terrorists, to laws that have proven ineffective at shutting down charities and ethnic associations fronting for terror. But it all stems from a political leadership unwilling to take a stand and secure Canadians and their allies from the violent whims of the world's assorted radicals, fundamentalists, and extremists.

Time and again, politicians have been tested, and they have failed. They have dined with terrorist fronts, lobbied on behalf of captured terrorists, and given extremists access to the decision-making process. Canada's official terrorism policy - in effect, denying that there is a problem - is merely a public relations strategy intended to manage Washington in order to prevent the Americans from imposing border security measures that would slow North-South trade.

As much as we'd like to hope this trend has been reversed by the election of Stephen Harper's conservative government in Canada, there are signs the new boss might very well be the same as the old:

Canada will not embark on an untested identity card system to meet U.S. border concerns, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said yesterday. [snip]

He said he is hopeful that the Americans will come to see that the passport requirement will not enhance security significantly but will have significantly hurt trade and tourism.

Clearly, we have to find a balance between economic and security interests with both Canada and Mexico. But as far as the threat of terrorism goes, I continue to be more concerned about our exposure from the North.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 08:56 AM | Email Author | Permalink

The Arizona Republic investigated federal aid grants from the Department of Homeland Security and found that hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent by local government officials on "equipment they are not certified to use or to pay for projects with only a tenuous link to homeland security." More:

an Arizona Republic review of thousand of pages of records and receipts found that some local governments made many questionable purchases under the guise of homeland security, including $38 leather wallets for all Capitol Police officers and a $47 hat badge for the police chief.

Many small cities and towns that are unlikely targets for a terrorist attack received disproportionate amounts of money, often more per capita than Phoenix, Tucson or Mesa....

State officials responsible for administering the federal funds said personnel shortages led to lax oversight and poor tracking in the initial years. But they also said they followed federal guidelines and approved purchase lists and have made improvements since 2003.

Who can honestly say they're surprised by this? It's true we're only talking about a few hundred thousand dollars, which is a rounding error in the grand scheme of things, but it does highlight a basic fact: when the government doles out money, people are going to spend it. And they're going to spend all of it whether they "need" to or not.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 07:34 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Jerry Markon and Timothy Dwyer in today's Washington Post:

Agent Harry Samit told jurors at Moussaoui's death penalty trial that his efforts to secure a warrant to search Moussaoui's belongings were frustrated at every turn by FBI officials he accused of "criminal negligence." Samit said he had sought help from a colleague, writing that he was "so desperate to get into Moussaoui's computer I'll take anything."

That was on Sept. 10, 2001.

Harry Reid's proud announcement that "we just killed the Patriot Act" will continue to haunt.

By the way, in case you missed it: yesterday we ran an exclusive on the Moussaoui trial by Debra Burlingame that is an absolute must-read.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 06:26 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Tom Friedman (Times $elect) does not mince words this morning:

When it came to the Dubai ports issue, the facts never really had a chance — not in this political season. Still, it's hard to imagine a more ignorant, bogus, xenophobic, reckless debate than the one indulged in by both Republicans and Democrats around this question of whether an Arab-owned company might oversee loading and unloading services in some U.S. ports. If you had any doubts before, have none now: 9/11 has made us stupid. [snip]

What's ironic is that if Democrats who hate the Bush war in Iraq actually had a peaceful alternative policy for promoting transformation in the Arab-Muslim world, it would be called "the Dubai policy": supporting internally driven Arab engines of change.

That's why Arab progressives are stunned by our behavior. As an Arab businessman friend said to me of the Dubai saga: "This deal has left a real bad taste in many mouths. I mean this was Dubai, for God's sake! You could not have a better friend and more of a symbol of globalization and openness. If they are a security danger to the U.S., then who is not?"

So whatever happens with the Iraq experiment — but especially if it fails — we need Dubai to succeed. Dubai is where we should want the Arab world to go. Unfortunately, we just told Dubai to go to hell.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 06:13 AM | Email Author | Permalink

No gloating, please, from those of us who were dead right about this Dubai ports deal.

Relief is fine, but let's not strut. This has not been fun. Does anyone think it has been a picnic to see a bruise well up on the reputation of a wartime President whose radar has been totally reliable until this?

The good news is that the bruise can heal. The best way to help it heal is to examine the lessons learned from this experience:

1) When President Bush told us after 9/11 of the high caution we need to exercise as we battle terrorists, we listened. That is why we could not grow cavalier about turning port control over to a Muslim nation.

2) The UAE is a far more friendly Islamic country than some of its neighbors. But the suggestion that this made the ports deal safe was crazy. The ruling emirs and business tycoons were never a problem. The concern stemmed from the portion of the UAE population that might share the pervasive Islamic view that America is evil. No amount of security or oversight could have changed that factor.

3) Proponents of the deal would do well to revisit the insults they delivered to critics. The worst low blow was that opposition to the deal was based on bigotry. How sad to hear such a baseless attack coming out of the mouth of a wonderful man like General John Abizaid.

4) The public should deliver some accountability to every politician who sincerely or insincerely opposed the deal. Anyone delivering proper indignation on the subject of the ports is a hypocrite unless there is an accompanying passion to get serious about our borders.

- Mark Davis
Host of The Mark Davis Radio Show

Posted by Mark Davis at 02:21 PM | Email Author | Permalink

So the deal is dead. I think the emotion behind the issue was understandable, though misplaced. Turning away Dubai may or may not have long term economic and foreign policy ramifications, but anyone who thinks that we've somehow made our ports safer by telling DPW to shove off is kidding themselves.

And now that we've set this precedent and labeled it as vital to national security, aren't we obligated to start asking some other questions? Something like eleven out of the thirteen terminals at the port of Long Beach are operated by foreign-owned companies, almost all of which have some level of government ownership. That includes the Chinese, who are probably less of a strategic ally than Dubai. Must we insist they divest themselves from port operations?

And if Arab-owned companies can't manage our ports, should they be able to fly airplanes over our cities? Reader CS notes that we have a handful of Arab-owned airlines that fly daily into Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami and other locations around the country. Surely that has to be classified as a national security concern as well. Can we allow that to continue?

All that being said, the lesson here is that sometimes you can't fight the politics of an issue no matter what the policy merits might be. This was a loser from the beginning, and the administration deserves a great share of the blame for the way it blew up and got out of hand.

More DPW related stuff below:

John Podhoretz says Congress saved Bush again.

The New York Times editorializes, "Even if the battle over DP World is headed toward a resolution, our ports remain dangerously vulnerable to terrorist intrusions."

Marc Sandalow of the San Francisco Chronicle writes, "The collapse of the Dubai port deal was a victory for the politics of fear."

The Washington Post looks at just how deeply overseas firms are entrenched at our ports.

The Seattle Times reports on SSA, the U.S.-owned company that is the ninth largest port operator in the world, now first in line to be the beneficiary of DPW's decision yesterday. For the record, SSA, who already had joint venture operations with P&O (the company acquired by DPW earlier this month) did not see any security concerns in the deal. The Washington Times reports on SSA and the other company in the running, Maher.

The Washington Times also performs editorial jujitsu on Chuck Schumer, calling him the "exploiter-in-chief of the Dubai acrimony" and slamming him for an underhanded Senate maneuver conducted by duping a member of his own party.

The Baltimore Sun editorializes, "There's no cause for celebration in yesterday's announcement that a Dubai-owned company will sell its interest in the management of six American ports in order to quell a political prairie fire that was about to engulf the White House."

Lastly, Linda Feldmann and Gail Russell Chaddock examine "Why the Dubai deal collapsed" in the Christian Science Monitor.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 06:39 AM | Email Author | Permalink

So the White House arranged a sale of Dubai Ports World that will transfer its port operations to a yet-to-be-named U.S. entity. We don't even know if it is a private American company or a government agency of some sort.

Here's something Sen. Schumer can fume about -- one of the very few private American firms capable of running a bunch of port terminals is HALLIBURTON. That's right, Halliburton. Remember them? Every Democrats' favorite.

But the big question is whether foreign investors are being repelled by neo-protectionist American politicians who are using phony national security reasons to advance an anti-trade, anti-investment, xenophobic agenda. This is a point that Steve Moore over at the WSJ is putting forth and it is vitally important. Do we really want to tell foreign capital not to come here? Do we want it in China? Russia? Brazil?

An international think tank estimates that U.S. jobs from foreign direct investment average over $60,000 per job; 34 percent more than U.S. capitalized jobs.

Today's stock market opened up, but at precisely 2:00 p.m. EST when the Dubai Ports World sale was announced, stocks turned tail and closed down 33 points on the day. What does that tell you?

Do we really want to send a message to world investors that we don't want their capital? Do we really want a political surrender to protectionism? Do we really want to emulate the political economy of Smoot Hawley of the 1930s? I don't think so.

- Larry Kudlow, Host of CNBC's Kudlow & Co.

Posted by Lawrence Kudlow at 04:44 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Yesterday’s New York Sun ran a story examining the continuing rift between conservative pundits on the Dubai ports deal. The paper ran a big spread on some of the leading conservative voices whose conflicting positions on the deal run the gamut. Yours truly was featured in support of the deal, along with the always insightful and knowledgeable commentators Charles Krauthammer and David Brooks, as well as former Congressman Jack Kemp who remains a sharp-as-a-tack pro-growth, free-market supply-sider. I count myself in good company.

After the hurricane of controversy these past couple weeks—all the editorializing, the talk show tempests and political sound bites—I still have yet to see any real evidence that the Dubai ports deal compromises U.S. national security. I just don’t see it. Objections raised by the Coast Guard have been solved, and the fact stubbornly remains that along with the U.S. Customs and Homeland Security, it is the Coast Guard, not Dubai Ports World, that will ultimately run the show when it comes to protecting port terminal operations.

If someone were able to show me a clear, insurmountable security problem, then I will gladly change my mind and hop aboard the anti-ports deal train. But so far, nothing has materialized. (And let me add that building in additional safeguards where there may be questionable practices is an eminently doable proposition.)

A word or two for the conspiracy-theorist crowd projecting nefarious, clandestine motives upon the UAE—the folks who subscribe to some misguided notion that the UAE is in cahoots with terrorists—let me encourage them to reconsider such position. The Dubai ports deal is costing these guys around $7 billion dollars. If they truly had some sick, ulterior motive to harm innocent Americans, don’t you think they could accomplish these imagined goals with far less money? The point here is that the UAE and Dubai Ports World has a huge vested economic interest in this deal.

One of the leading critics of the ports deal is my old friend Bill Bennett. He wants President Bush to “kill the deal.” Writing on National Review’s website, Mr. Bennett recently wrote, "To defend this deal is to defend a $7 billion arrangement with a country that has never had a democratic party in its entire existence…What kind of a signal are we sending by making a public ally of a country that refuses democracy and does not recognize the existence of its most democratic neighbor because it is considered to be inhabited by members of the wrong religion?"

Well, with all due respect to Mr. Bennett, if the primary determinant of whether or not America does business with foreign nations rests upon their singular commitment to democracy, then Uncle Sam would have to draw the curtains and turn out the lights on a huge number of existing relationships with non-Democratic nations. For starters, where may I ask would our bustling American economy gather the necessary fuel to fire its economic engine? After all, roughly forty percent of our nation’s oil supply is derived from OPEC countries, a group which includes countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, where the torch of democracy is anything but burning bright at this point in history.

And as far as doing business with pure democracies, then I suppose Mr. Bennett and others would have us terminate all economic activity with communist China? Discontinue all further trade? Of course, I would argue that increased economic connectivity, supported by the free flow of trade investment and labor, makes for better political relations between the U.S. and other countries. Better yet, it also tends to open up and liberalize authoritarian political regimes in the direction of democratization.

When you scratch this debate among conservatives deep enough, what you are left with is a pretty clear demarcation between free-traders and protectionists. That’s really the cutting edge litmus test that divides the conservatives on this debate.

In my opinion, those conservatives who oppose the Dubai ports deal are lining up with the xenophobic protectionism of Pat Buchanan. The pessimistic Buchananites want to put a huge wall around America. They are isolationists. They have no global model of economic growth. On the other hand, conservatives in favor of the ports deal align themselves with the pro-growth, free-trade liberalizing tradition embodied by Jack Kemp. The Kemp adherents believe in breaking down global barriers in order to enhance prospects for prosperity and democratization everywhere. That’s what this thing is all about.

It’s the same dividing line litmus test on immigration. The Pat Buchanans, the Michelle Malkins and the Michael Savages of the world are all anti–immigration. Michelle Malkin recently wrote, “I must express bottomless disgust with those on the Right who have turned into mush-mouthed race card players to shift blame away from President Bush for his miserable mishandling of the situation.” Miss Malkin misses the mark. There is a race card here. Absolutely. Whether it’s anti-Arab xenophobia or anti-Mexican xenophobia, the fear-mongers in the conservative ranks are up to their old tricks. They do not really believe in economic opportunity. Nor do they believe in the Ronald Reagan “City on a Hill” vision of America to lead and transform the rest of the world toward the spirit and reality of free-market prosperity, political democratization and true equality of humankind.

At the end of the day, it’s really a question of competing visions. The Buchanan vision is one of pessimism, defeatism and fear. The Reagan-Bush vision brims with optimism, victory and success.

Yes, there is a rift in the conservative ranks; one that will hopefully mend itself sooner rather than later. But can there be any serious question that the resounding conservative Republican ascendancy and success of the past twenty-five years launched by Reagan and advanced by George W. Bush is built on optimism? I think not.

- Larry Kudlow, Host of CNBC's Kudlow & Co.

Posted by Lawrence Kudlow at 08:14 AM | Email Author | Permalink

When someone with the foreign policy experience of a Richard Klein weighs in on the ports deal, I am inclined to listen. But when the headline of his piece refers to the "humiliation" he says the UAE would endure if the deal were stopped, it is clear that his objectivity is shot.

No one needs to be "humiliated." Are these the only two options? A smiling transfer of our ports to UAE control, or a dose of abject shame as the deal is yanked from them? For God's sake, can someone step in with some nuance? The UAE, like every other Islamic nation, is in a state of turmoil as the polar opposite factions of Islam fight for the future of their religion. Some of that turmoil is healthy, indicating progress toward a more moderate Islam. But as those battles rage, we cannot permit the added security risk of smoothing the path any potential terrorist faction would have in accessing a weak spot in our seaports.

Denying the UAE this contract right now is not a slap; it is a reality check. In no way does it prevent us from genuine appreciation for the help they have offered us from the highest levels. It is an acknowledgment that below the ruling emirs there is spread a conflicted population, some of whom like us and some of whom wouldn't mind killing us.

Mr. Klein writes:

If we cannot do business with the UAE, the U.S. has no real hope for any success among Muslim nations.

Wrong. Hope springs eternal that Muslim nations will progress to the point that we can trust them as much as we do the other nations currently running some U.S. port operations. We're just not there yet. Of course it is vital to win the battle for the hearts and minds of the Arab world. But that does not mean that we must lunge toward anything that may be desired by the Arab world or its apologists in America.

- Mark Davis
Host of The Mark Davis Radio Show

Posted by Mark Davis at 08:32 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Yesterday on the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Rep Peter King (R-NY) said something interesting:

ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, I just did an interview with Republican Congressman Peter King. As you know he's already been a sharp critic of this port deal, he's from the port state of New York, of course. He's also the Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee in the House.

He's now alleging to CNN that a couple weeks back when this story first broke, he spoke to the officials at the Departments of Treasury and Homeland Security, who were involved in this CFIUS process, and he asked them did you check out whether or not DP World, the company involved, had ties to al Qaeda, and he is telling CNN hew was told, quote, Congressman, you don't understand, we don't conduct a thorough investigation.

I pressed him on this, because this will obviously seem to contradict various administration claims that not only was there investigation, but that it was thorough, that it got to the heart of the security questions whether or not there were terrorist ties here. I pressed King on this point. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PETER KING (R-NY), HOMELAND SECURITY: I'm saying there was no investigation, there was no real investigation conducted during that 30-day period. I'm hoping there will be a real one during this 45 days, but when I hear the administration say they're going to use the 45 days to educate the Congress and let us know exactly what happened, they should be educating themselves.

They should be doing the investigation they should have done during the first 30 days when there should have been an automatic 45- day investigation. I can't emphasize enough, there's been no investigation into terrorism whatsoever on this contract.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: King added that as a result of what he's learned from administration officials involved in the process, it would be, quote, shameful to move forward on this actual deal. The explosive new charges are coming as Democrats today on the third birthday of the Department of Homeland Security really pounded away and charged that this port deal shows that the administration has been negligent on the overall issue of homeland security.

Obviously, King has been a critic of the deal from the beginning, but if what he said is true then the White House is in even more trouble on the deal than originally thought.

Also, The Washington Times editorializes on the Bush administration's response to the recently reported concerns cited by the Coast Guard about "intelligence gaps" with the DPW deal:

According to both Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte and Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Stewart Baker, a "letter of assurance" from the United Arab Emirates firm was the reason. This letter would provide information on personnel, operations and foreign influence as the U.S. government requests it, they said -- and this was enough to satisfy the Coast Guard.

It turns out the letter in question doesn't even address the Coast Guard's concerns. It contains bland reassurances and mentions of previously disclosed participation in U.S. government security programs. Said Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican and Homeland Security Committee chairman, in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Tuesday: "[A] careful review of the 'assurances letter' reveals that DP World is not, in fact, bound to provide the U.S. government with the information it would need to close the intelligence gaps the Coast Guard identified...The language is weak... Indeed, the assurances appear to amount to little more than a restatement of what the FBI or other law enforcement agenc[ies] could gather anyway in the course of an investigation."

Finally, the New York Times reports on the heartburn the DPW deal is causing even the most loyal Republicans:

Senator Jon Kyl, a staunch supporter of President Bush who faces a potentially difficult re-election fight this year, is hearing a lot from constituents in Arizona about the plan to allow a Dubai company to operate shipping terminals at Eastern ports. Most think the deal should be stopped. [snip]

It is not clear what kind of staying power the deal has as an issue, but for now Republicans have little choice but to acknowledge the objections they are hearing from voters, distancing themselves from Mr. Bush on national security heading toward the midterm elections. [snip]

Many Republicans doubt that Mr. Bush will be able to contain the opposition, and Democrats agree, pointing to the unusual amount of bipartisan backing for legislative proposals that would give Congress the final say on the deal.

Most Republicans are not yet willing to draw a line in the sand, and the agreement for the new 45-day review bought the White House some time. But the reservations run deep, and the White House cause has not been helped by what Republicans on Capitol Hill viewed as a dismissive posture by the administration and a needlessly quick veto threat.

"Let's see what happens," said Mr. Kyl of Arizona. "We will do the right thing and let the politics take care of itself."

We'll see about that. The politics of this deal continue to remain negative, and seem to be growing more so as more reports surface about whether or not a satisfactory review of national security issues took place the first time around. If the 45-day review produces evidence national security was given short shrift, or if new evidence emerges casting doubt on the UAE's reliability as a post 9-11 ally in the war on terror, then the chance of the deal going through go from very slim to nil.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 09:00 AM | Email Author | Permalink

This week and next are going to spell the success or defeat of this horrible Dubai port deal. It is the gut check of the year for conservatives who believe it is insane to hand over operational control of major U.S. ports to a state-owned company from the United Arab Emirates. A perplexing mix of Saudi-style friendship and cooperation blended with old-school coziness with the Taliban and pockets of Muslim extremism make the UAE a dicey partner - which you'd think would be a deal-breaker for the President Bush we conservatives have looked to for leadership in the global war on terror for more than four years.

Our "alliance" with the UAE is a mirage if they would pull the plug on cooperating with us simply because we took a step to be safe.

Where is the diplomat who will go to the UAE and say, "Look, we are grateful for our close relationship as your country makes the tough journey toward Islamic moderation. Since we haven't exactly gotten there yet, there is no way we can let DPW operate our ports, and we appreciate you understanding that, just as I'm sure you appreciate the enormous restraint we show by speaking so well of you and largely overlooking the rank anti-Semitism you share with most of the rest of the Arab world."

Please let me be wrong, but I see Congress, talk show hosts and columnists all sipping the Kool-Aid of this deal, looking to escape the stress of a momentary conflict with President Bush and Rush Limbaugh.

The White House will maintain its energy and its message. The critics probably will not, and the deal will likely go through, even though it is against every shred of the post-9/11 war footing we have been instructed to adopt.

- Mark Davis
Host of The Mark Davis Radio Show

Posted by Mark Davis at 05:44 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Our friend Nathan Wirtschafter alerts us to a report in the Jerusalem Post that Dubai Ports World (DPW) is a participating member in the Arab boycott of Israel. Wirtschafter sums up the dilemma presented by this revelation:

Participating in the boycott is against U.S. law and the U.S. Government issues fines, sometimes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, to companies which honor the boycott.

More to the point, a company who boycotts Israel has the moral stain of supporting an economic expression of Arab hatred against the West. Since Dubai Ports World has a corporate culture which supports the Arab boycott, the corporation is probably not entirely "with us" in the War on Terror and should not be protecting U.S. Ports.

Obviously, Dubai Ports World cannot have it both ways. It's either a progressive, trustworthy organization which operates in the 21st century or it's afflicted with 12th century prejudice.

If Dubai Ports World really wants the business, perhaps it should stop participating in the boycott now, and when the port contracts come up for renewal, it can be considered for the work.

Alternatively, if President George W. Bush is absolutely committed to allow the deal to go forward, maybe the U.S. should minimally condition the deal on Dubai and Dubai Ports World ending their boycott of Israeli products.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 12:21 PM | Email Author | Permalink

The theory, as it's being advanced by folks like Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin, is that allowing DPW - or basically any Arab country with even the most remote ties to al-Qaeda or terrorism, which I think, is another way of saying all Arab countries - to have access to sensitive and detailed information about how our ports are run puts the U.S. at additional (and unnecessary) risk based on the assumption that terrorists would have an easier time infiltrating an Arab-owned corporation than a multinational from some other country - like Britain. But as Mark Steyn pointed out on Hugh's show last night, Britain has had more people directly involved in committing terrorist acts than the UAE in the last five years.

Hugh admits he's coming around on the DPW deal after speaking with Steyn and estimable Robert Kaplan, both of whom think the deal should go through - though perhaps with a delay and/or more vetting. Now if only Hugh would interview some experts on port operations and port security as well.

By the way, three new commissioners were sworn in to sit on the board of the Tampa Port Authority on Tuesday. A few hours later that board voted 6-1 in favor of purusing a contract with P&O, the company being acquired by Dubai Ports World. Granted, these folks are members of the business community with a vested interest in the shipping industry, but they're also Americans who are intimately involved with port operations and think the DPW deal has been blown out of proportion:

"The national uproar is not correctly stated in my opinion," said Steven Pinney, senior vice president for operations with The Mosaic Co., who was appointed to one of two new positions on the expanded port board. "Very few have gotten to the core of the real story.

"It's been made out to be an issue of [P&O under new ownership] taking over ports or taking over security of the ports, and none of those are real issues."

Don't tell that to Democrats, some of whom are so excited about looking tough on national security they're willing to demagogue this issue as long and as hard as they can. Here's Sherrod Brown, current Ohio Congressman and the Dems' Senate candidate against Mike DeWine in November, issuing a statement today - long after it's been established by anyone paying even remote attention that DPW will have nothing whatsoever to do with port security, which will still be run by the U.S. Coast Guard and Customs Service:

"In response to the proposed outsourcing of America's port security to the United Arab Emirates, Sherrod calls on United States Trade Ambassador Rob Portman -- a former Ohio Congressman -- to halt negotiations with the Mideast nation. Sherrod also plans to introduce legislation that would strengthen American's national security through trade agreements." (emphasis added)

Lest you think this is just some sort of careless wording by a snot-nosed staffer, Brown compounds the offense by posting this gem on The Huffington Post that includes some real nuttery:

The Bush administration has been outsourcing jobs for five years, and now they want to outsource our national security...This issue teaches us something many of us already know -- the Bush administration consistently chooses profits over people.

Please. Brown's shooting for the national security - trade isolationist bank shot, which is pathetic but offers a nice segue to a final point: the UAE is and ally and one of, if not the most modern Arab country in the world. If we're going to tell them they can't do business in our ports, then we're effectively tell the entire Arab world they can't do business in our ports.

But aren't we also doing more than that by establishing a slope that could get very slippery? China is a "strategic competitor" that operates government-owned companies in our ports. Couldn't they easily exploit the details of how our port operations work to the detriment of national security? Should we be concerned about that? South Korea is an ally, but couldn't a North Korean operative theoretically infilitrate a South Korean owned company just as easily as a jihadi sympathizer from Yemen could infiltrate DPW?

The flipside to this argument is that we have to draw the line somewhere and make judgement calls. I'm not saying we should be green-lighting deals for Pakistan to take over terminal operations at the Port of New York. The point is that we have legitimate concerns about port security that need to be addressed. But we shouldn't conflate or confuse the issue of port operations and port security, nor should we as a country have a knee-jerk, emotional reaction to a deal that could have long term foreign policy and economic ramifications.

Let me close by saying that I've always been a national security first-type. Always. People who've visited this space for any extended period of time know that to be true. Furthermore my initial reaction to the deal was, like most people's, negative. I remain totally open to being convinced this deal shouldn't go through because it will adversely impact national security. So far, however, I just haven't seen anyone produce any evidence to make the case effectively.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 06:06 PM | Email Author | Permalink

The conventional wisdom on the Dubai Ports World deal seems to have shifted in the last 24 hours.  In the blogosphere the focus has jumped from its initial target -- the agreement itself -- to a new and familiar one: President Bush.  For instance, Glenn Reynolds has decided:

I don't think there's any real security issue here, but I think the Bush Administration needs to launch a full-bore effort to explain what's actually going on, something that they still haven't really mounted...

I will admit that my knee jerked on hearing this story, and that I should have waited to learn more before offering an opinion. In my defense, I'll note that I gathered more information and changed my mind. Still, mea culpa.

But (and this is a separate point from the merits of the decision, or of my take thereon) it wasn't just me -- there were an awful lot of knees jerking on this decision, and the White House, or somebody, should have foreseen that. That doesn't get me off the hook, of course, but it doesn't reflect well on them, either.

James Lileks retreats somewhat as well:

The Bush administration may well be in the right, but they have handled this poorly – the remarks about vetoing any Congressional efforts to block the sale may have been aimed at Congress, but they splashed right in the face of the voters. The crafty response would have been to acknowledge the worries, assure a complete and total review and disclosure, and let the facts speak for themselves.

Meanwhile Tim Cavanaugh offers examples of some points he thinks Bush should have made.  Like Reynolds, he says the DPW deal "doesn't involve port security, and if opponents think there's a security risk they haven't provided any evidence for that."  But according to Cavanaugh, Bush is in trouble because he was caught flat-footed and unprepared to argue such straightforward points.  He asks:

Who could get out of this fix?

I'll tell you who: NAFTA-era Bill Clinton, that's who! Explaining stuff like this is what Bill Clinton lived for. Just think back to that Clintonian love of factoids, that congenial explanation of the benefits that you, the listener, will directly receive, that enthusiastic drive to get you to share the president's love of policy minutiae. Clinton was great at this stuff because, whatever else he was, he was a man of the people. He understood (as Bush does) the benefit of a barrier-free market that might leave, say, Dubai Ports World providing services to American harbors. And he knew that populist panics are stupid and almost always wrong. But unlike Bush, he realized that populist panics come from deep within people's hearts, and that you have to respect that.

Critics have raised some serious concerns over the DPW deal, and it is clear that Bush made a mistake by brushing off these concerns.  To be sure, there is a strong opposition that will not be won over so easily on the merits of the agreement (see Malkin, Hewitt, Huffington).  So far, though, it is the pundits who are doing the backtracking, not the President.

Posted by Nick Nordseth at 04:45 PM | Email Author | Permalink

David Brooks is one of the most mild-mannered guys in the world. He's also one of the smartest and most thoughtful commentators around. So I think the tone of his column (Times Select) in the NY Times today on the reaction to the US/UAE port deal says quite a bit:

This Dubai port deal has unleashed a kind of collective mania we haven't seen in decades. First seized by the radio hatemonger Michael Savage, it's been embraced by reactionaries of left and right, exploited by Empire State panderers, and enabled by a bipartisan horde of politicians who don't have the guts to stand in front of a xenophobic tsunami.

But let's be clear: the opposition to the acquisition by Dubai Ports World is completely bogus. [snip]

In short, there is no evidence this deal will do any harm. But it is certain that the xenophobic hysteria will come back to harm the U.S.

The oil-rich nations of the Middle East have plenty of places to invest their money and don't need to do favors for nations that kick them in the teeth. Moreover, this is a region in the midst of traumatic democratic change. The strongest argument the fundamentalists have is that they are engaged in a holy war against the racist West, which imposes one set of harsh rules on Arabs and another set of rules on everybody else. Now comes a group of politicians to prove them gloriously right.

God must love Hamas and Moktada al-Sadr. He has given them the America First brigades of Capitol Hill. God must love the folks at Al Jazeera. They won't have to work to stoke resentments this week. All the garbage they need will be spewing forth from press conferences and photo ops on C-Span and CNN.

The more we learn about this deal, the more we find that the hysteria surrounding it is vastly overblown. That doesn't mean there aren't legitimate concerns that should be given additional scrutiny or that the whole thing couldn't have been handled better by the Bush administration.

Still, in situations like this - perhaps especially in this case - it's always best to listen to experts, not politicians, because the truth is that most politicians don't have much more of a clue than you or I about how our port system works:

Posted by Tom Bevan at 07:44 AM | Email Author | Permalink

More editorials on the U.S./UAE port controversy:

Los Angeles Times: "Port Hysteria"
"WHEN MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TAKE homeland security seriously, it's a welcome development. Unfortunately, Tuesday's bipartisan hissy fit over the Bush administration's approval of a Dubai company's $6.8-billion deal to manage six important U.S. ports is neither serious nor welcome."

NY Daily News: "Mr. President, Are You Nuts?"
"That giant sucking sound you hear is one really big mob of congressional Republicans evacuating their side of the aisle en masse and galloping over to agree with their left-coast colleagues as fast as they possibly can that the summary selloff of U.S. port operations to Dubai is your basic bad idea."

There stood President Bush yesterday, vowing to veto legislation that would prevent a company owned by the United Arab Emirates from taking operational control of six of the nation's ports — including New York and New Jersey.

Arrayed against him: Elected officials of both parties, including solid blocks in Congress, officials from states potentially put at risk by the deal — and Mayor Bloomberg.

On Bush's side: Jimmy Carter, all by his deservedly lonesome self. ("The overall threat to the United States and security, I don't think it exists" said the man who so famously failed to prevent the fall of Iran to Islamic fundamentalism.)

That alone should give Bush serious second thoughts...."

Washington Times: "Scotch The Ports Deal"
"In two weeks time, the ports of New York and New Jersey, Miami, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New Orleans will go under contract to a government-owned company in the United Arab Emirates. This must not stand. It's plainly obvious that a government-owned company from a hostile region should not operate American ports, whatever the assurances about security and however limited its involvement in day-to-day operations. What can be done?"

New York Sun: "On The Waterfront"
"Somehow, it doesn't add up. Senators Menendez, Clinton, Lautenberg, Schumer, Dodd, and Boxer are up in arms over the Bush administration's decision to allow Dubai Ports World, a company owned by the United Arab Emirates, to take over operations at ports in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami, and Philadelphia. So are Reps. Vito Fossella and Peter King. One has to wonder, what makes this group, not particularly known for its hawkishness - in some cases known for abject dovishness - suddenl