Bush trips up trying to balance security fears with free trade

[PhilipShore]

Bush trips up trying to balance security fears with free trade
Financial Times, UK
February 25 2006

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/ffaf99f6-a5a2-11da-bf34-0000779e2340.html

Since the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush has tried to sell the American people two ideas that are difficult to reconcile: that terrorism from abroad is the most serious threat the US has ever confronted, and that Americans should respond by embracing the world rather than walling themselves in.

His administration's clumsy response this week to the controversy over the acquisition of US port facilities by Dubai Ports World, an Arab government-controlled company, showed just how delicate that balancing act has become.

In the face of overwhelming congressional criticism that his administration had jeopardised the security of US ports, Mr Bush's defence of economic openness fell flat. "I'm trying to conduct foreign policy now by saying to people of the world, we'll treat you fairly," he said, threatening to veto any legislation that would block the deal.

"The terrorists want us, they want our nation, to become distrustful," Gordon England, deputy defence secretary, told a Senate panel on Thursday. "They want us to become paranoid and isolationist - my view is we cannot allow this to happen. It needs to be the opposite."

[H2O]

1. Most of the money

That paid for the 9/11 attacks came through the UAE. In addition to that, Bin Laden was on a hunting trip with the Dubai Royal family a full year after he declared war on the U.S.

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