Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Don't Trash Dubai Deal
As the political firestorm was building over the Bush administration's decision to hand over control of six major U.S. ports to a company based in the United Arab Emirates, Sen. Joseph Lieberman was urging caution.
"Dubai and the United Arab Emirates are allies of ours in the war on terrorism," the Connecticut Democrat said, in little noticed comments three days ago on ABC's "This Week."
"So I don't think we want to just because it's a Dubai company, even owned by the government, we want to exclude them from doing business here," he added.
Lieberman reminded: "The more you look at it, the fact is that a lot of terminals in America are already owned by foreign companies."
The former vice presidential candidate's position contrasted sharply with other members of his party - like Sens. Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer - who immediately saw the ports deal as an opportunity to undermine President Bush's image of strength in the war on terror.
But Lieberman insisted that the Dubai deal did nothing to increase the vulnerabilities of an already under-protected U.S. ports system.
"The truth is I worry more about the failure to invest enough in port security in America through the Homeland Security Department to detect dangerous items, WMD, coming in here than I worry right now about this, this sale," he told "This Week."
As the political firestorm was building over the Bush administration's decision to hand over control of six major U.S. ports to a company based in the United Arab Emirates, Sen. Joseph Lieberman was urging caution.
"Dubai and the United Arab Emirates are allies of ours in the war on terrorism," the Connecticut Democrat said, in little noticed comments three days ago on ABC's "This Week."
"So I don't think we want to just because it's a Dubai company, even owned by the government, we want to exclude them from doing business here," he added.
Lieberman reminded: "The more you look at it, the fact is that a lot of terminals in America are already owned by foreign companies."
The former vice presidential candidate's position contrasted sharply with other members of his party - like Sens. Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer - who immediately saw the ports deal as an opportunity to undermine President Bush's image of strength in the war on terror.
But Lieberman insisted that the Dubai deal did nothing to increase the vulnerabilities of an already under-protected U.S. ports system.
"The truth is I worry more about the failure to invest enough in port security in America through the Homeland Security Department to detect dangerous items, WMD, coming in here than I worry right now about this, this sale," he told "This Week."
