The little agency that created a great big stink
February 24, 2006 12:20 AM /
FUBAR
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McClatchy Newspapers
Five years ago -- or even five days ago -- it was just another obscure federal agency, one of thousands with alphabet-soup acronyms and quiet missions performed beyond the glare of public scrutiny.
Today, though, the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States is at the center of a raucous political fight over port security -- and, more broadly, at the heart of an ongoing national debate over Americans' attitudes toward Arab nations since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
President Bush's aides acknowledged Wednesday that he hadn't been informed of a decision by the committee -- CFIUS, for acronym lovers -- to approve the pending purchase by a United Arab Emirates-owned company of a British firm that helps run six major American ports.
Bush didn't know about the deal because CFIUS, which has approved some 1,500 commercial transactions since it was created three decades ago, hadn't told him. And the committee hadn't told him because it decided that the deal didn't threaten U.S. national security.
Many private port security experts agreed with that assessment. Globalization came to American seaports a decade or more ago, they said, so that as many as a third are now run by foreign companies.
"This is not unlike what is happening at many U.S. ports," Kim Petersen, president of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based SeaSecure, the country's largest maritime-security company, said in an interview from Jordan. "It astonishes me that none of the politicians who are so fearful of foreign operations in U.S. ports raised any objections when China, for example, assumed control of their port operation in Los Angeles."
The U.S. Coast Guard and the Homeland Security Department, along with local authorities, maintain security at American ports, Petersen said, including inspections of the 5 million cargo containers that enter the country by ship each year.
But the decision to open six American ports to Arab operators cost CFIUS its anonymity. For Bush, the political price is proving even higher as he bears a torrent of bipartisan ire over the deal.
Rep. Sue Myrick, a North Carolina Republican, sent the president a very short but hardly sweet missive Wednesday.
"Dear Mr. President," Myrick wrote. "In regards to selling American ports to the United Arab Emirates, not just NO _ but HELL NO!"
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, both normally among the Bush administration's stoutest defenders, vowed to take a closer look at the sale of the British company Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Navigation Co. to Dubai Ports World.
Sen. John Warner, R-Va., announced that the Senate Armed Services Committee would hold a hearing Thursday on the pending sale.
Along with firms from China, Singapore, Denmark and other countries, the British company already operates terminals at various American ports.
Bush, who has vowed to veto any legislation blocking the deal, sent his senior aides scurrying across Capitol Hill and into TV broadcast studios to try to stem the controversy over the state-owned Arab company helping to operate ports in New York, Newark, N.J., Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore and New Orleans.
"There was a very thorough review by a variety of different agencies across our government _ 14, to be specific _ including actually getting assessments from the intelligence community," Clay Lowery, assistant treasury secretary for international affairs, told reporters. "The review said there was no derogatory information against this company, and that this company did not raise . . . undue concerns about national security in the country."
CFIUS, which made that call, sounds like a sleepy congressional committee, but it is actually a high-powered, secretive inter-agency group made up of a dozen senior representatives from across the government's military and intelligence spectrum.
The Treasury is the lead agency in CFIUS. Others with seats on the committee include the National Security Council, the State Department, the Homeland Security Department and several White House economic offices.
Ironically, an earlier spasm of public outcry over Arab economic power gave birth to CFIUS. President Gerald Ford created it via executive order in 1975 after the OPEC oil boycott sent gasoline prices soaring in the United States.
Congress codified and toughened the agency in 1988 amid yet more public angst over Japan, then seen as a rising economic superpower. A congressional amendment five years later required CFIUS to conduct a 45-day investigation of any sale in which the purchasing company is owned or controlled by a foreign government, with the probe's findings forwarded to the president for a final decision.
Bush administration officials said repeatedly Wednesday that the takeover of the British shipping firm by Dubai Ports World had been thoroughly investigated, but they didn't explain why the 45-day formal probe was skipped or why Bush wasn't compelled to sign off on the deal.
Such a step has rarely been taken. Among more than 1,500 transactions received by CFIUS, only 25 prompted an investigation. Twelve were sent to the president, and only one -- by the first President Bush in 1990 -- was prohibited, according to the Washington Post.
Concerns over CFIUS were highlighted in September in a report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. It found disagreement among the different agencies with seats on CFIUS over the criteria for determining national security threats.
The GAO recommended that Congress act to require greater disclosure of actions taken by CFIUS and their rationales, and it said there should be more robust investigations to determine whether investments or sales involving foreign firms threaten U.S. security.
"Economic interests are important, but they shouldn't take a backseat to national security," Ann Calvaresi-Barr, the report's author and GAO director of acquisition management, said in an interview Wednesday. "The process has weaknesses and vulnerabilities that need to be addressed."
Petersen, though, said the review system "worked quite well" in the case of the Dubai-based shipping firm's pending purchase of the British company. Dubai was the first port to install radiation-detection equipment, he said, and the United Arab Emirates government has worked closely with Washington on a number of counter-terrorism measures since the Sept. 11 attacks.
"The (U.S.) intelligence agencies and defense agencies are very familiar with the United Arab Emirates, they are very familiar with Dubai Ports, and they weighed in without exception in favor of this decision," Petersen said.
Barbara Barrett of the McClatchy Washington Bureau contributed to this report.
© Copyright
2006 by Capitol Hill Blue
Comments
Which deal was nixed by the first president Bush?
Why isn't the Carlyle company connection sited in this story. The difference between a 'foreign company' and a 'state owned company whose population is against us' highlighted more?
And, with Denmark the fash point of countess violent protests in the Arab world, how would they 'work together' on our soil/ports? And 'Arab country' doesn't mean the same thing, per country. We don't have a problem with Egypt, that signed off on the Camp David Peace accords 30 years ago, recognizes Israel and has maintained peace in that volotile region. It really is this particular state, with it's recognition of the Taliban, not recognizing Israel, and the only nation whose security was so shoddy that that nuclear scientist who caused Pakistan and Iran to have nuclear weapons programs/weapons chose UAE port operation.
And, our 'security' is underfunded, under equipped and overstretched as it it.
Lisa
Posted by Lisa Baker at February 24, 2006 10:06 AM
Interesting I found no reference in this article about the testimony that CIA chief George Tenet gave to the Terrorist Attacks panel in the spring of 2004.
He said that they could have targeted Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan but that there were too many of the UAE Royals sitting with him.
We would have "blown away half the royal family" if we had targeted Bin Laden in 1999.
These same Royals from Dubai were sitting down and eating and drinking with Osama, and George W. Bush wants to let them run our ports?
What ever happened to "Whoever supports terrorists is our enemy?"
It just goes to show that there has never been a global corporation that George W. Bush didn't love.
Posted by BS Detector at February 24, 2006 10:58 AM
The Government supposedly KNOWING,supposedly UNDERSTANDING as they say they do and CONSTANTLY preaching about the THREATS we live under in this New World after 9/11 saw NO POSSIBLE PROBLEM, NO POSSIBLE QUESTIONS EVER BEING RAISED with this transaction:.??
Give me a break !!!
Look at who the chairs and the who sits on this committee. UNBELIEVEABLE.
YES, "follow the money"
The president was NOT informed about this simply because he needed DENIABILITY...later on ....PERIOD
Posted by TRUTH 101 at February 24, 2006 11:09 AM
Any illusion that Bush didn't know about this deal is pure b.s. I ran across a link on Prison Planet. It seems that Bush and his mattoid associate's were planning this national security threatening deal prior to January 24, 2006. It's also comes out that they intentionally tried to circumvent Congressional and minor agency oversight on a deal such as this.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2006/220206Maritime.htm
I don't trust our "republicrat" Congress or Senate to do anything about this situation either. They are sneakily shoving the Patriot Act down our throats, they are dragging their feet on Bush's use of the NSA for spying on American's without following process and protocols, they refuse to seriously address the issue of this phony war based on engineered, "cooked" intelligence, and they refuse to roll up their sleeves and take Bushco to the woodshed either through censure or impeachment. I personally think America has been commandeered by Congressional, Senatorial, Judicial, and Excutive branch traitor's, plain and simple. Once they hit D.C. they pitch pork to the simpleton's back in Mayberry, while they align themselves with their new corporate controller's, and have one thing on mind; i.e. maintaining incumbency in their respective elected offices. I call, I email,and even write my reps and what I get back is "canned" patronization concerning my concerns. Even their telephone aids that take the calls are nothing but "bots" logging our sentiments. To put it simply America is in "harms way"...!
Carl Nemo, Ridgefield, Wa USA
Posted by Carl Nemo at February 24, 2006 11:43 AM
I'd like to know the names of the representatives who are serving on CFIUS right now. Anyone got that information?
Posted by
Ellen Chamberlain at February 24, 2006 02:30 PM
The problem is that it should not be a secret committee. The ownership of the entire government is lost when is ceases to be accountable to the people. The names and affiliations of all those on CFIUS should be public as the only thing they do that could affect national security is passing measures such as this that, when made public, are against the will of the very people they are in Washington to represent. I would be enormously interested in the names, affiliations, and the dates they were each installed in this commission. That would be most telling as to whose interests they truly represent.
The secrecy is the biggest destroyer of our country during this administration. Human nature is to tell sooner or later and it doesn't take torture for the dirty little secrets to be exposed. There is little doubt in my mind that the suggestion for this preceded 9/11 and all we had to do was get the proper people on CFIUS.
Posted by Jane at February 24, 2006 04:19 PM
Bush waves and Congress caves. EVERY FUCKING TIME.
Posted by Noodle at February 24, 2006 04:26 PM
Our government has been selling America out from under us to the highest bidder for a long time now. Our highways, national forests, water rights, sea ports...... Get the picture???? All you morons out there need to turn off the "idiot box" and start to be real Americans. We are only a heart beat away from losing EVERYTHING!!!!!
If we don't stop this runaway train pronto the only thing left will be to stock up on those two precious metals... No I ain't talking about gold and silver.... I mean lead wrapped in copper.
Posted by Beagle Boy at February 24, 2006 09:29 PM
In response to Ellen Chamberlain's query about information concerning the shadowy CFIUS committee. It evididently falls under the Senate Banking Committee, then under the U.S. Treasury and is basically composed of a bunch of agency head bureaucrats, evidently none of them doing their jobs concerning the protection of the people of the United States and it's interests. It seems to me it's almost intentionally set up to be ineffective. I found an article from October 2005 concerning CFIUS and it's shortcomings; i.e. conveniently engineered shortcomings for the benefit of big business. I was amazed at the difficulty of finding any information concerning this "committee", staffed by agency heads. Here's the link.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/10/06/senators_eye_reforming_foreign_merger_review/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+News
I must say the more I dig into this debacle, I can unequivocally state that America is up for sale and has been so for a long time. The Saudi's allegedly have an 850 billion dollar investment in the U.S. Even little Denmark has huge holdings in U.S. assets. China owns the bulk of our debt...?! 99 percent of the countries on earth prevent such foreign investment. If they do, they still retain ownership of the assets if question's arise concerning their national security or interests. Not so in the U.S. I really think we are witnessing the "twilight's last gleaming" concerning America and our way of life. We've watched the Bushista's pull off one nigthmarish act after another, and Congress and the Senate regardless of their "noise-making" roll over like puppies to have their bellies scratched by these these PNAC neocon mattoids. It seems the "republicrat's" are all in this together and "we the people" are their enemy. I hope the link helps you concerning your quest for information.
Carl Nemo Ridgefield, Washington
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