Scramble to Back Port Deal: Making of Political Disaster By ANNE E. KORNBLUT
Published: February 25, 2006
WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 — Carol M. Browner and Thomas J. Downey, a classic Washington power couple, are not used to being rebuffed. But that is what happened when those two Democratic advisers approached Senator Charles E. Schumer last week about their client, Dubai Ports World.
Strategists across town have marveled at the mismanagement of the transfer, placing most of the blame on the administration for failing to recognize the potential for danger. One explanation is that to some administration officials the deal may have seemed routine. Several people involved had worked with Dubai Ports and might not have seen the transfer as provocative.
Days before, Mr. Schumer, Democrat of New York, had issued an early complaint about the deal to put several American ports under the control of Dubai Ports World, owned by the United Arab Emirates. Mr. Schumer demanded to know what would protect the United States "if a terrorist organization decided to infiltrate this company."
Initially, the question seemed like a bump that could be handled with a few calls to the senator. Instead, it snowballed into a political disaster, one that has become a paradigm of failed crisis prevention here. It has also spawned bizarre alliances, putting President Bush on the same side as two former members of Bill Clinton's cabinet and at least briefly pitting former Senator Bob Dole against his wife, Senator Elizabeth Dole, Republican of North Carolina.
Snip...
Lawyers and lobbyists at Alston & Bird, the big law firm based in Atlanta, put together the commercial deal for Dubai Ports, quietly helping win approval from the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States of the $6.8 billion acquisition of the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company, the British company that has contracts to manage several United States ports.
No one, it appears, mapped a strategy to break the news to Congress that the country where two Sept. 11 attackers were born would be running ports here, an obvious thicket, even if it posed no real security risk.Snip...
At another point, Ms. Browner contacted Joe Lockhart, a press secretary for President Bill Clinton, about taking up the Dubai Ports cause. That arrangement would have added an even more unusual alliance. But Mr. Lockhart said he declined. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/25/politics/25lobby.html No real security threat? That's not what Corzine said in his radio address.
Here's what I'm learning (some of it I knew just didn't connect): back in the early 1990s (Kerry's BCCI report is dated 1992), Bush Sr. accepted a $1 million donation for his library from the ruler of Abu Dhabi. Wasn't that accepting money from a terrorist banker? Clinton evidently returned donations to his campaign from Arab groups. He did later accept similar funds for his library.
The whole thing is crazy. I get the feeling this is all being smooth over. If I think about the Bush Sr. incident and then 9/11, the Bush Jr. crap and Iraq, then this situation, I can't help but imagine that if this deal goes through, at some point there will be another "I told you so" moment. People are not realistic. You can't stop everything from happening, but sh**, don't help it along.
Albright, Clinton, none of them can claim superior foresight, and certainly not the Bush administration (with the note handed directly to them), otherwise 9/11 would never have happened.
Rant over.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
