No Bye-Bye to Dubai. [OOPS-dated]

Well, others who've searched and thought and studied and come around on the Dubai Ports deal have brought me around. Thanks, guys, for doing all the work.

Just go to this post at The Glittering Eye and then read each of the posts Dave links to, especially this short one.

The upshot of it is that this deal is business as usual among multinational corporations, plus it is rewarding a friend (an Arab friend, at a time when we need to encourage modernity, moderation, and engagement among Muslims), and it will not jeopardize or even directly affect port security (which of course is atrocious as it is -- reader_iam points out in a must-read post that that's a far more serious issue the anti-Arab hysteria threatens to obscure). (She also links to this hilarious ditty by Dr. Sanity.)

These bloggers have convinced me that now of all times, we can't afford to become undiscriminating xenophobes, and if Democrats or Republicans choose to play that card to tap into American fear and anger, they are being irresponsible. The cogitations are complex, as Joe Katzman at Winds of Change, for example, is as angry at U.S. media that capitulated to radical Islamist intimidation over Toonageddon as he is at bloggers who continue to perpetuate inflammatory misinformation about the Dubai Ports deal. As jkelly at Irish Pennants intimates, panic and fatigue have made us dangerously irrational and self-defeating when we kowtow to our enemies and then turn around and kick our friends in the teeth.

OOPS-DATE: The plot thickens as none other than the Coast Guard, responsible for the port part of Homeland Security, expressed doubts back in December about the security implications of the Dubai ports deal. Those doubts were overlooked or overridden, according to the WaPo:

The U.S. Coast Guard, in charge of reviewing security at ports operated by a Dubai maritime company, warned the Bush administration it could not rule out that the company's assets could be used for terrorist operations, according to a document released yesterday by a Senate committee. [ . . . ]

But in a Dec. 13 intelligence assessment of the company and its owners in the United Arab Emirates, the Coast Guard warned: "There are many intelligence gaps, concerning the potential for DPW or P&O assets to support terrorist operations, that preclude" the completion of a thorough threat assessment of the merger.

"The breadth of the intelligence gaps also infer potential unknown threats against a large number of potential vulnerabilities," says the document, released by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

"Security measures were thoroughly reviewed, including intelligence matters," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. She did not know whether the White House was briefed on the Coast Guard assessment, but, she said, "I do know that at the end of the day, when the process was completed and the transaction was approved, homeland security questions were resolved."

The Coast Guard document, completed about one month before the ports deal received government approval Jan. 17, was the strongest indication that members of the administration had expressed security concerns over the transaction. Officials from the departments of Treasury, Defense and Homeland Security told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that the secretive interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviewed the DP World deal, was unanimous in its position that no concerns had emerged to trigger the 45-day national security review required by the law that established the panel.

I wonder what the people who talked me into it are saying now. I found this at Have Coffee Will Write:

To be fair, the Coast Guard now says the section of the memo is being taken out of context and that the whole memo should be considered. Problem is, we can’t. It’s classified.

Further on this, Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice quotes AP/Yahoo News:

The Coast Guard said the concerns reflected in the document ultimately were addressed. In a statement, the Coast Guard said other U.S. intelligence agencies were able to provide answers to the questions it raised.

"The Coast Guard, the intelligence community and the entire CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States) panel believed this transaction received the proper review, and national security concerns were, in fact, addressed," the Coast Guard said.

Joe interprets this not so much as another blow to the ports deal per se, but as another self-inflicted blow to this administration's credibility:

The way this new piece of info is emerging into the media and news cycle represents one more public relations debacle for the White House — even if the Coast Guard did indeed raise these objections earlier and they were given acceptable assurances.

The motif of this White House now can be summed up in two words: credibility problem. [ . . . ]

If it had given some indication earlier that this had been the Coast Guard's stance, [the administration] would not face this new controversy within controversy.

Ham handed politics on the White House and apparently corporate level have made things worse:

1. CNN's Lou Dobbs charged that Dubai Ports World is trying to get CNN to silence him. Watch a clearly irked (and defiant) Dobbs take the whole thing public in THIS VIDEO (go to Joe's for the link).

2. Bush's threat to veto any Congressional action to delay or halt the Ports plan has infuriated some in Congress. And Senator Trent Lott nearly has smoke coming out of his ears when he talks about it. Watch VIDEO (link at Joe's).

   Joe's very next story is titled "Bush Hits Record Low In CBS News Poll."

Comments

[Winston]

Thanks for pulling this together, amba. This is one of the most confusing and emotional issues to come along in a while. It is so unfortunate that one of the results of this Administration's many misdeeds is that we to the left of center, or even moderate, tend to automatically reject everything that they are for. If you can be turned around on this issue, that is a strong signal that I need to follow all of your links and rethink it for myself.

[karen]

This question follows on the heels of Winston's thoughts:

If this *deal* had been introduced by anyone other that W or this WH in particular- do you think there would have been way less automatic rejection?

I still say W cannot even whipe his ass to please the Left- let alone speak, think,lead, etc... Thank God for all of us that he does whipe in private.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

But, er,

Later, the Coast Guard said in a statement that the excerpts of its preliminary evaluation "when taken out of context, do not reflect the full, classified analysis" that eventually concluded "that DP World's acquisition of P&O, in and of itself, does not pose a significant threat to U.S. assets in ports" in the continental United States.[From the same article.]

Someone leaked, and the WaPo published, an exerpt of the report that sounds bad and doesn't reflect the conclusions of the report, and the Coastie guy wouldn't talk about it in front of the press because the report (which undoubtedly has at least some hints of "sources and methods") was classified.

Over the years, I've seen a lot of leaks of stuff where I actually had access to the classified version, and the one thing I learned from it weas that you should never trust leaks of classified sources. They are nearly invariably from someone with a political axe to grind, and either flat out false or heavily slanted, because the leaker has confidence that it can't be corrected without giving away more. (Cf the "domestic spying" leaks: everyone who has seen information about the actual program says the press coverage is wrong, but no one actually says what the right information is.)

[Charlie (Colorado)]

"excerpt". Dammit.

[amba]

I don't know if it was Maine Senator Susan Collins, moderate Republican chair of the Homeland Security Committee, who "leaked" that passage, but she certainly quoted and cited it out of its full context. Can we assume she'd seen the whole classified report before she commented?

If she has a political agenda, it's interesting because it suggests some Republicans are using this issue because they feel a need to distance themselves from the Bush administration to get reelected. (Collins is up for reelection.)

What do you think about Gandelman's diagnosis of "credibility problem"? Is there any way the administration could have used this Coast Guard concern to calm fears, even though they couldn't release the classified details? It looks like they didn't even know about it. They trusted the process to run smoothly, but the sad fact is, we don't and we can't -- not after so many signals were missed in the summer of 2001. These secret review processes may not be the public's business, but tell me, Charlie, on the evidence, how can we trust our government to protect us? Or to spend our money wisely doing it? It's a fine line between whipping up public anxiety for political ulterior motives, and asking the serious and necessary questions. I too decry the sensationalization and exploitation of these issues, yet "Shut up, be good children and trust us," does not solve the problem!

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Amba, that's a hard question. But notice that I didn't say "everyone who leaks something that disagrees with me" is wrong, I said "all leaks." My guess is that the CG wouldn't normally talk at all about an investigation of that sort.

As far as how we can evaluate these things with all this classification, well, if there are no other questions, remember there's a quiz on the 12th and sorry, I think we're out of time for today.