Port Storm Rising

Well, we're late to the party, as usual. So let's get you caught up.

It started, as all stories do, at the beginning. Frank Gaffney was the first to break the story beyond the financial pages:

How would you feel if, in the aftermath of 9/11, the U.S. government had decided to contract out airport security to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the country where most of the operational planning and financing of the attacks occurred? My guess is you, like most Americans, would think it a lunatic idea, one that could clear the way for still more terror in this country. You probably would want to know who on Earth approved such a plan — and be determined to prevent it from happening.

Of course, no such thing occurred after September 11, 2001. In fact, the job of keeping our planes and the flying public secure was deemed to be so important that the government itself took it over from private contractors seen as insufficiently rigorous in executing that responsibility.

Now, however, four-and-a-half years later, a secretive government committee has decided to turn over the management of six of the Nation's most important ports — in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore and New Orleans — to Dubai Ports World following the UAE company's purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which previously had the contract.

This is a "WTF?!?" move at first glance and also the further you delve into it. Negative feedback on this deal was not long in blowing back - with Katrina-like force. Mr. Gaffney got the ball rolling:

America's seaports have long been recognized by homeland security experts as among our most vulnerable targets. Huge quantities of cargo move through them every day, much of it of uncertain character and provenance, nearly all of it inadequately monitored. Matters can only be made worse by port managers who might conspire to bring in dangerous containers, or simply look the other way when they arrive.

Entrusting information about key U.S. ports — including, presumably, government-approved plans for securing them, to say nothing of the responsibility for controlling physical access to these facilities, to a country known to have been penetrated by terrorists is not just irresponsible. It is recklessly so.

At the risk of being politically incorrect, the proposed new management will also complicate the job of assuring that the personnel working in these ports pose no threat to their operations — or to the rest of us. To the extent that we must remain particularly vigilant about young male Arab nationals as potential terrorists, it makes no sense to provide legitimate grounds for such individuals to be in and around some of this country's most important strategic assets.

Of particular concern must be the implications for energy security as a very large proportion of the Nation's oil imports come through the Atlantic and Gulf State ports that the UAE company hopes to take over. For example, Philadelphia alone handles some 85% of the oil coming into the East Coast; New Orleans is responsible for one-seventh of all of our imported energy.

Cap'n Ed dug up details on the degree of penetration of the UAE straight out the the 9/11 Commission report:

Page 138: "Even after Bin Ladin’s departure from the area, CIA officers hoped he might return, seeing the camp as a magnet that could draw him for as long as it was still set up. The military maintained readiness for another strike opportunity. On March 7, 1999, [Richard] Clarke called a UAE official to express his concerns about possible associations between Emirati officials and Bin Ladin. Clarke later wrote in a memorandum of this conversation that the call had been approved at an interagency meeting and cleared with the CIA." [This involved Clarke blowing a cover on a covert operation.]

Page 167: "In early 2000, Atta, Jarrah, and Binalshibh returned to Hamburg. Jarrah arrived first, on January 31, 2000. According to Binalshibh, he and Atta left Kandahar together and proceeded first to Karachi, where they met KSM and were instructed by him on security and on living in the United States. Shehhi apparently had already met with KSM before returning to the UAE. Atta returned to Hamburg in late February, and Binalshibh arrived shortly thereafter. Shehhi’s travels took him to the UAE (where he acquired a new passport and a U.S. visa), Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and one or more other destinations."

Page 171: "Bin Ladin relied on the established hawala networks operating in Pakistan, in Dubai, and throughout the Middle East to transfer funds efficiently."

Page 216: "On June 20, Hanjour returned home to Saudi Arabia. He obtained a U.S. student visa on September 25 and told his family he was returning to his job in the UAE. Hanjour did go to the UAE, but to meet facilitator Ali Abdul-Aziz Ali."

Page 224: "The Hamburg operatives paid for their flight training primarily with funds wired from Dubai by KSM’s nephew, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali. Between June 29 and September 17, 2000, Ali sent Shehhi and Atta a total of $114,500 in five transfers ranging from $5,000 to $70,000."

Page 236: "After training in Afghanistan, the operatives went to a safehouse maintained by KSM in Karachi and stayed there temporarily before being deployed to the United States via the UAE. ... Ali apparently assisted nine future hijackers between April and June 2001 as they came through Dubai. He helped them with plane tickets, traveler’s checks, and hotel reservations; he also taught them about everyday aspects of life in the West, such as purchasing clothes and ordering food. Dubai, a modern city with easy access to a major airport, travel agencies, hotels, and Western commercial establishments, was an ideal transit point."

The point here is not to accuse Dubai or the any of the other UAE of being in league with al Qaeda, or to blanketly condemn all Arabs as terrorists. As James Robbins cited in NRO's symposium on this matter, the UAE has over the past year been a model Middle East citizen in the GWOT. Almost as if they were currying the Bush White House' favor for just such a commercial coup as has now been approved by the Administration. Not in any "MWA HA HA HA!" sense, in all likelihood, but motivated by nothing more than pecuniary self-interest.

But that pecuniary self-interest has a definite mercenary streak. As the other symposiumists point out, the Emirates will and do do business with anybody, including Iran and all manner of Islamist terror groups. This anything-goes philosophy by its very nature doesn't put vigilence and caution high on the list of priorities - or, as Mr. Morrissey put it, "If they run their own country's borders so poorly, why would we trust them to run ours?"

A very good question. For however good a business transaction this is, it cannot be worth the needless additional homeland security complications, to say nothing of the sulfuric political reaction across the spectrum. And that in turn inspires very little confidence in the prooffered reassurances put forth by the Administration.

We'll cover what many are calling "the Harriet Miers appointment meets national security" tomorrow - or, to be entirely up to date, later today.