Earl Bockenfeld's Radio Weblog

The story about the sale of P&O's port assets to Dubai Ports World (DPW) and the CFIUS approval of the deal has become a political firestorm in the past week. A number of people have pointed out that opposition to the UAE-US port management deal has a 'racist' tint to it. Bogus. The problem here is that we are giving a foreign company and country (it's state-owned) control over a vital national security concern. What's worse, is that we're considering giving it to a country/company that has links to non-state actors. The same non-state actors that blew up the WTC, the Pentagon and the Cole.

An interesting fact: if DP World buys P&O, the Dubai-based company will take over port operations in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Fremantle, in addition to its current operations in Adelaide - five of the top seven Australian ports ranked by value of trade.

Australia understands the al-Qaeda threat as well as any other nation due to the Bali bombing in 2002. So why not even a peep of concern in the Australian media or political establishment about this deal from a security perspective?

It�s a complex story, in large measure because of the complexity of port operations today, with so many different participants across the supply chain: port authorities, terminal operators, shipping agents, freight forwarders, stevedores, etc. DPW would take over P&O's position as terminal operator at a number of key U.S. ports via a management lease, but they would not "own the port." And it's worth noting that the terminal operations industry is already nearly entirely non-American: the large players Hutchison, Maersk, Temasek, and P&O are from Hong Kong, Denmark, Singapore, and the UK respectively.

Looking at the deal, I think we need to ask the following questions: Does this transaction pose a risk to port security today? And could it create new risks in the future?

I know about the connections between the UAE and terrorism, some of which are concerning (e.g. UAE recognition of the Taliban) and some of which are spurious and/or guilt-by-association (e.g. 9/11 hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi's UAE citizenship, even though he was clearly radicalized in Hamburg, Germany). But I've seen nothing yet to indicate a connection between DPW and its key financial backers and terrorism. If real ties were to be found, then that would be reason to block the deal. But if not, then I think it's unfair to claim that there is a security risk today from this transaction.

The DPW purchase of P&O could create a strong incentive for al-Qaeda and related groups to cultivate insiders at DPW to learn about security operations at ports. It's not difficult to imagine scenarios where a well-positioned insider could learn sensitive tactical information such as the conditions used to select containers for additional screening (perhaps via retrospective analysis of selectees) or the daily cycle of security operations at key ports, which could assist with attacks and/or smuggling activities. Of course, there is known terrorist activity in the countries where all of the other major port operators are headquartered, so any of them could be similarly infiltrated today. The question is whether the insider threat would be greater with DPW.

A second longer-term implication is what impact that this would have on US intelligence, both in terms of preventing an attack and conducting a post-incident investigation. Would this impair the information flow related to critical counterterror and counterproliferation activities in the maritime domain? And if there were an attack involving an American port, would DPW open up its corporate records in Dubai and allow its non-US-based employees to be questioned by the FBI in the same way that a British-owned company would? If any new information is found that causes direct national security concerns, then the Congress and the Administration should block the deal via authority under CFIUS.

I wish that everyone who is expressing outrage about this deal would channel their anger into the issue of the government's underinvestment in port security over the past 4 1/2 years. That's the real issue. The potential vulnerabilities created by this deal are nothing in comparison with the real vulnerabilities that exist in our port system today due to the failure to make adequate security investments in port and supply chain security. The Maritime Transportation Security Act (MTSA) of 2002 provided a solid framework for improving port security, but Congress has not supplied the resources to effectively implement MTSA, which the Coast Guard had estimated would require a total of $7.3 billion over the 2003-2012 period. Congress has provided only a fraction of that: $175m for port security grants in current fiscal year, which itself was a significant improvement on the administration's request. There have been many solid steps taken for port security, such as C-TPAT and the investments in radiation portal monitors at ports, but not the same system-wide commitment that we see today in the federal government to commercial aviation security.

At the rate things are heading, this could become a top story for weeks to come. If that leads indirectly to renewed attention to port security and increased federal funding for ports, then perhaps that's a good thing. But I fear that the Dubai ports story could become a distraction from more urgent homeland security issues, such as passing the Collins-Lieberman chemical security bill or strengthening our disaster response system before the next hurricane season.

So why get all so worked up over Dubai operating our ports on the East Coast? What is stunning to me is that we do not seem to be able to do a lot for ourselves anymore. Whats up with that? As much as Americans might hate it, more and more of America's assets are going to be owned by brown people with funny names soon. They have the money, and they intend to invest it in wider industries to diversify away from oil and away from the risk of owning US financial assets that will evaporate as inflation gets hot in a couple years.

Americans don't have any money. They have debts. Without savings they can't make investments, so they should be grateful that someone else wants to. It will help slow the inevitable decline of the US economy as it stagnates from a borrowing binge that will ultimately bring to a close the American era as an economic superpower.

I'd really be shocked and distraught about all of this if it made a difference. What I am saying is why worry about the security of our ports when we already have been told Bush and his administration have done a really poor job improving our security since 9-11. Yeah the 9-11 commission told us that and the numbers of Ds and Fs they have issued on various parts of what BushCo are not doing tell us even more.

You don't think that after the scathing report the 9-11 Commission issued along with its report card that our governmental overseers would step up to the plate and hold a hearing and find out what really needs to be done and make it happen do you? That would be just too fucking much to ask. No but dickwads like Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Peter T. King can grandstand on this issue but do nothing to ensure adequate security for our nuclear plants, our chemical plants, our vital infrastructure and on, and on, and on. We've got problems a hell of a lot bigger than Dubai operating our ports along the east coast. And more than enough evidence to tell us �Homeland Security� is one of those Orwellian phrases that mean nothing less than "If there's trouble, you're on your own."

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