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More on US-UAE relations
When the United Arab Emirates paid $6.5 billion for 80 advanced F-16 fighters from Lockheed Martin in 2000, the deal was applauded by members of Congress and local American officials as a milestone that would solidify relations and help preserve thousands of American aerospace jobs.But in the days since the Bush administration approved the purchase by a state-run company from Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates, of rights to manage seaports in six American cities, lawmakers have denounced the port deal as a security threat and threatened to block it. The episodes highlight how Persian Gulf sheikdoms and other Islamic countries in the region have come to be treated paradoxically in Washington as both strategic allies and, since the attacks of September 2001, as untrustworthy foes in combating terror groups like Al Qaeda. Few countries encapsulate this paradox more than the oil-rich United Arab Emirates. Around 1,500 American military personnel work and live at an airbase an hour outside the capital of one of the emirates, Abu Dhabi, from which surveillance aircraft and refueling tankers fly missions over Iraq and Afghanistan. But in Washington, and especially on Capitol Hill, the emirates' reputation has been colored more by the blistering treatment the country was dealt by the 9/11 Commission, the congressionally mandated panel that conducted an exhaustive investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks. The commission's inquiry found that "the vast majority of the money funding the Sept. 11 attacks flowed through the U.A.E." Its government, the panel said, ignored American pressure to clamp down on terror financing until after the attacks. Even now, when by all accounts the emirates have taken action in response to some American demands to enact tougher controls in its banking sector and cooperate against Al Qaeda, many lawmakers say allowing Dubai Ports World, the state-run U.A.E. company, to take over the ports remains too much of a risk. Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and a member of the Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, said it was reckless to allow a country to manage the ports that does not have a "solid" record against terrorism. The United Arab Emirates is composed of a disparate group of sheikdoms that banded together in 1971. Dubai, which runs Dubai Ports World, has built itself into a financial and transportation hub in the region. The country is the world's fifth-largest exporter of oil, but the vast bulk of its oil reserves lie in the more conservative Abu Dhabi, the emirate that holds the country's presidency and dominates its foreign and defense policy-making. The emirates grew closer to Washington when commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf was threatened during the "tanker war" between Iran and Iraq in the 1980's. The ties expanded in the 1990's, culminating in the F-16 sale in 2000. Revelations about the Dubai banks' role in the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, however, have introduced tensions on both sides. Current and former American officials who have dealt with the United Arab Emirates say the portrayal of the emirates by opponents of the port deal is at best misleading and at worst could jeopardize the assistance the Pentagon, the F.B.I. and other agencies say they need in preventing terrorism. If the port deal is overturned, few experts expect that U.A.E. would significantly reduce military cooperation with the Pentagon, which Abu Dhabi sees as vital to protect it from far larger neighbors, like Iran and Saudi Arabia. Abu Dhabi is unlikely to cut off oil and gas sales, which form a small part of American imports, experts said. "It certainly will not mean that U.A.E. will start ending cooperation with the U.S.," said Theodore Kattouf, who was ambassador to the emirates from 1998 to 2001. "But I think it would be seen as a real rebuff to a country that is sort of leading the way in the Middle East in terms of globalization and free trade." Pentagon officials say that part of the emirates' public relations problem stems from their unwillingness to disclose all but the most basic description of their cooperation with the American military. Worried about appearing too close to Washington, the emirates permit American troops and equipment in their country only under the condition that the United States cannot describe the scale or nature of the American mission, military officials said. But the Pentagon in recent days has disclosed more details about American bases, apparently to counter the claims about the U.A.E.'s sympathy for terrorists. In remarks to reporters Tuesday, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, "In everything that we have asked and worked with them on, they have proven to be very, very solid partners." Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-02-23 |
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