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Chertoff says Dubai port deal includes safeguards
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The homeland security chief said on Sunday a deal for a Dubai-based company to manage major U.S. ports would include security safeguards, but a Republican senator urged a probe and called the Bush administration "tone deaf politically" for approving it.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the Bush administration had approved the sale of British firm P&O, which manages six U.S. ports including New York, to Dubai Ports World after a classified review and the deal would include safeguards to protect U.S. national security. "You can be assured that before a deal is approved we put safeguards in place, assurances in place, that make everybody comfortable that we are where we need to be from a national security viewpoint," Chertoff said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

But Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said it was a mistake for the administration to approve the sale and called on Congress to investigate it. "It's unbelievably tone deaf politically at this point in our history, four years after 9/11, to entertain the idea of turning port security over to a company based in the UAE who avows to destroy Israel," Graham said on "Fox News Sunday."
No matter who owns or manages a port, they have to comply with American law. The DHS is going to watch them the same regardless.
Even so, it's good to see that the American public is paying attention, and their elected representatives are addressing some of the questions.
"I don't think now is the time to outsource major port security to a foreign-based company," he said.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat sniffing an opportunity to sound 'tough' on national security, said she would support legislation to block foreign companies from buying port facilities. "I'm going to support legislation to say 'No more, No way.' We have to have American companies running our own ports ... Our infrastructure is at risk," she said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

Last week, Sens. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Hillary Clinton of New York, both Democrats, said they would offer legislation to ban companies owned or controlled by foreign governments from acquiring U.S. port operations. "No matter what steps the administration claims it has secretly taken, it is an unacceptable risk to turn control of our ports over to a foreign government," Menendez said in a statement.
Posted by: Steve White 2006-02-20
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=143169