United States President George Bush moved Thursday to shore up his reputation as a trustworthy leader in his ”war on terror” and to defuse charges that his administration had compromised US security by approving the handover of six sea ports to a company from the United Arab Emirates.
As Bush offered his personal assurances on US security, senior defence and homeland security officials appeared before a Senate committee to try to convince sceptical legislators that proper review procedures had been observed in the secret $6,8-billion deal to give Dubai Ports World operational control over six US ports, following its takeover of P&O, which had been managing them.
”People don’t need to worry about security,” Bush told reporters, referring to the deal that would hand operational control of ports in New York, Baltimore, Miami, New Orleans, Philadelphia and New Jersey to the company.
”This deal wouldn’t go forward if we were concerned about [US] security.” He noted that the UAE had been an ally in the ”war on terror”, and added: ”The more people learn about the transaction that has been scrutinised and approved by my government, the more they’ll be comforted that our ports will be secure.”
But his assurances were almost immediately undercut by Democratic senators, who accused the UAE of an ”uneven history” in the ”war on terror”, and noted that it had been one of the few countries to recognise the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The New York Port Authority said it was suing to stop the takeover.
The deepening row put Bush in the unusual predicament of defending his record as a wartime president to fellow Republicans as well as Democrats. In an attempt to regain control of the ports furore, Bush’s adviser, Karl Rove, on Thursday told reporters that the president would accept a small delay in the UAE takeover of P&O, bowing towards demands from Democratic Senators for a 45-day review.
On Capitol Hill, the deputy treasury secretary, Robert Kimmitt, was grilled by the Senate’s armed services committee on the decision-making behind the ports deal. ”We’re not aware of a single national security concern raised recently,” Kimmitt said. But his arguments were brushed aside by the ranking Democrat on the committee, Carl Levin, who noted that the investigative commission into the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001 had aired doubts about the UAE and its commitment to the ”war on terror”.
He quoted the report as saying: ”There’s a persistent counter-terrorism problem represented by the United Arab Emirates.”
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic senator from New York, accused the administration of lacking judgement, saying: ”If 9/11 was a failure of imagination, and Katrina was a failure of initiative, then this process was a failure of judgement.”
The controversy overwhelmed a parallel event on Thursday that the Bush administration had hoped would re-establish its competence after Hurricane Katrina: the release of the White House report on the New Orleans catastrophe which sets out a new disaster management plan.
The report, prepared by Bush’s homeland security adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend, calls for the use of the military when local and state agencies are overwhelmed by natural disasters or terrorist attacks. It also blames poor planning and discipline, inexperienced disaster management personnel and a lack of coordination between government agencies for the failed response to Katrina. ”The fact is it didn’t measure up,” Townsend told reporters. – Guardian Unlimited Â