U.S. terms for approving an Arab company’s takeover of operations at
six major American ports are insufficient to guard against terrorist
infiltration, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee
said Sunday.
“I’m aware of the conditions and they relate
entirely to how the company carries out its procedures, but it doesn’t
go to who they hire, or how they hire people,” Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.,
told The Associated Press.
“They’re better than nothing, but to
me they don’t address the underlying conditions, which is how are they
going to guard against things like infiltration by al-Qaida or someone
else, how are they going to guard against corruption?” King said.
King
spoke in response to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s
comments Sunday about conditions of the sale. King said he learned
about the government’s terms for approving the sale from meetings with
senior Bush administration officials.
Chertoff defended the
security review of Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates, the
company given permission to take over the port operations. Chertoff
said the government typically builds in “certain conditions or
requirements that the company has to agree to make sure we address the
national security concerns.” But Chertoff declined to discuss specifics
saying that information is classified.
“We make sure there are
assurances in place, in general, sufficient to satisfy us that the deal
is appropriate from a national security standpoint,” Chertoff said on
ABC’s “This Week.”
London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam
Navigation Co., was bought last week by DP World, a state-owned
business. Peninsular and Oriental runs major commercial operations in
New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.
A
Miami company, Continental Stevedoring & Terminals Inc., has filed
suit in a Florida court challenging the deal. A subsidiary of Eller
& Company Inc., the Miami company maintains it the suit disclosed
Saturday evening that it will become an “involuntary partner” with
Dubai’s government under the sale.
“We are aware of the lawsuit,
but cannot comment until our legal teams have a chance to review it,”
Michael Seymour, president of the North American arm of Peninsular and
Oriental Steam Navigation, said Sunday in the company’s initial
response to the lawsuit.
He noted that his company “is itself a
foreign-owned terminal operator that has long worked with U.S.
government officials in charge of security at the ports to meet all
U.S. government standards, as do other foreign companies that currently
operate ports in the United States.”
“We are confident that the
DP World purchase will ensure that our operations continue to meet all
relevant standards in the U.S. through ongoing collaboration between
the port operators and American, British, Australian and port security
officials throughout the world,” Seymour said in a statement telephoned
to the AP.
Lawmakers from both parties are questioning the sale as a possible risk to national security.
“It’s unbelievably tone deaf politically at this point in our history,” Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“Most Americans are scratching their heads, wondering why this company from this region now,” Graham said.
Sen.
Barbara Boxer, on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” said, “It is ridiculous to
say you’re taking secret steps to make sure that it’s OK for a nation
that had ties to 9/11, (to) take over part of our port operations in
many of our largest ports. This has to stop.”
Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice told Arab journalists in an interview Friday at the
State Department, that it was “the considered opinion of the U.S.
government that this can go forward.” She pledged to work with Congress
because “perhaps people will need better explanation and will need to
understand some of the process that we have gone through.”
At least one Senate oversight hearing is planned for later this month.
“Congress
is welcome to look at this and can get classified briefings,” Chertoff
told CNN’s “Late Edition.” “We have to balance the paramount urgency of
security against the fact that we still want to have a robust global
trading system,” he added.
Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., who is
working on legislation to prohibit companies owned or controlled by
foreign governments from running port operation in the U.S., said
Chertoff’s comments showed him that the administration “just does not
get it.”
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. joined some family members
of Sept. 11 victims at a news conference Sunday to urge President Bush
to personally intervene. The president “should override the agreement
and conduct a special investigation into the matter,” Schumer said.
Dubai Ports World should not be excluded automatically from such a deal because it is based in the UAE, Chertoff said.
Critics
have cited the UAE’s history as an operational and financial base for
the hijackers who carried out the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In
addition, they contend the UAE was an important transfer point for
shipments of smuggled nuclear components sent to Iran, North Korea and
Libya by a Pakistani scientist.
Dubai Ports World has said it
intends to “maintain and, where appropriate, enhance current security
arrangements.” The UAE’s foreign minister has described his country as
an important U.S. ally in fighting terrorism.
“I would hope that
our friends in Abu Dhabi would not be offended by the fact that in our
democracy, we debate these things,” Rice said in the interview with the
Arab journalists.
