Many people may be concerned over "which" country runs our ports. I am concerned that any country or state owned/controlled company runs our ports. They don't run our railroads (or do they?), they don't run our airports (or do they?). They can't have direct influence on our domestic policies (or can they?). I am opposed to any country having any jurisdiction over anything in our country. I don't care if it's UAE, Austrailia, India or whoever! If a company is run by a foreign state, they have no business having any kind of influence in the running of our infrastructure.

Who, in their right mind, would want a foreign company to run our ports? You are only going to get more drugs and terrorist in this country.There are too many illegal people in this country already that we don't even try to get rid of. Come on Bush, let's get our ball glove on and get in the game.

What foreign ports do the US control?

What does it take to make americans mad these days?
I can't believe that we don't have a rebellion. Reagan did the right thing by ruining the unions. Now working class people have no way to voice their opinions, and no way to organize any type of descent.
Since america voted for George Bush I have been thanking my lucky stars that I am an old man. I can only imagine what this country will be like in ten years.

Rex doesn't get it! If Bush can press for port security with the arabs in command through Dubai Ports World(formerly, P&O, the British outfit purchased by the former), then what of this whole issue of fighting terrorists? Has it been a charade all these years, keeping in mind that it was Noam Comskey who noted that terrosim would replace the cold war as the "boogeyman issue"? The infiltration of Dubai Ports World by the unscrupulous is quite plausible if not expected. So, Rex, where does a thinking person stand on what this deal truly seems to be in light of the Project for a New American Century, "Pearl Harbor" incident, and 9/11? If you are not a thinking person, then these issue do not light up in sequence over this port security matter!

Once again US President Bush is far out ahead of the unscrupulous media and lagging US Congress.
This Port episode has generated consciousness among all Americans over a vital issue that just laid there, like our land borders. Now that everyone is aware of the issues, if a solution to Port Security issues is not found and implemented, Bush is "NOT" to blame.
Security of Ports rests with the US not with UAE.

Why must we sell or give control of our Ports to another country. Are we not capiatible of taking care of them. I think Mr Bush go much to far, its time our Senators and Congress step in and help us, we do not understand all it means. I Personaly think its a bad move. You mean we can't be friends to other countrys without turning over or ports Thank you for letting me have my say

Port Politics

I find it amazing that a clear example of what this sale of one company to another really means.

1. Each State has a port authority that has control over each port in that state. The port authority does not run the port; it contracts the actual running of that port to a company according to the states contracting laws.
2. A majority of the ports on the east and gulf coast were under contract to a British company, P & O, which is now being sold to Dubai Ports World. This means that Dubai Ports World now owns those contracts with each State and will have to abide by their requirements.
3. At some point in the future, the contracts with each state will run out and they will be up for bids. The problem with asking why a US company does not want to bid on these contracts is they cannot make any money on the deal. Due to the Longshoremen Union contracts, the US ports are the most inefficient in the world.
4. The Longshoremen Unions have the contracts to provide all of the workers at each port in the US. Every company that manages a port will have to deal with the unions to get the work done. If you think that is easy, remember the shutdown of the west coast port due to a contract dispute with the unions?
5. As stated in 2 above, the contracts with each State will describe the security requirements that must be met. The Federal government must provide any national security requirements and the manpower to do the job. At the present time the Federal government is doing the job with the US Coast Guard and the US Customs.
6. If the Federal government really wants to protect our ports, then they will have to spend the Billions of dollars at the same level they do at the airports. Instead they push it off to the port management company. Ergo the problem with the sale of the British company P & O to Dubai Ports World.
7. If this sale is a problem with a particular foreign company managing our ports than we need to pass a US law to forbid all foreign companies from managing our ports. That would cause real problems as described in 3 above.

The real problem with all of the above is the secret way the process was handled for the last 90 days. This is a standard problem with George W. Bushes’ government. It is “his” government as he said so in a speech yesterday. This is just another example of an incompetent government.

Once again Mr. Bush claims no knowledge of the details. I guess he thinks his "fellow Americans" are really dense or just plain stupid. I don't understand why our ports are run by other countries in the first place. I am not opposed to doing business with other countries but why are our ports run by them? In light of security, allowing the UAE company to run our ports seems to leave ourselves more exposed to potential dangers. Who in the administration negotiates these deals? Who scrutinizes these deals? Where are the checks and balances in these situations? And why does the President feel it necessary to threaten Congress with a veto? I feel we are in grade school!!!!!!

I hope that this flap over the security of these respective ports raises the ire of a combined House of Representatives and Senate to castigate this smarmy White House deal to have the UAE company in this situation. Apparently, Good Ol' Bush must think that it was a group of Inuits that took over the planes that were flown into those buildings on 9/11 and that it was Clinton's fault that will ultimately allow this Dubai World company to seize operational control of these ports. The whole notion of not knowing the full details of this deal makes W. and Snow look dreadfully silly when in fact they were stearing discussion toward this allowance. Mr. President and Secretary Snow, your pants are down below your knees on this one. Claims by either of you guys on not knowing the full details smells to high heaven. Please, put your pants back on, it must be cold out there, both figuratively and naturally, about this port security issue. Get a spine, Congress!

Follow the money. . . follow the money . . .follow the money. .. follow the money. . . all the way to Crawford.

When Bush says 'our government has looked at this' does he mean the same government that looked at the 8-6-2001 PDB and was so incompetent that we got hit on 9-11-2001? Why will this government owned entity not have to keep paperwork regarding its operations at our ports here on US soil?

Why isn't the mainstream press talking about the Carlyle Group and how this may connect to the Bush family relationship with the Saudis? I did finally hear Randy Rhodes talk about it on Air America but the mainstream press is not touching this topic - why?

I guess that the United States of America is up for sale to the highest bidder, Mr. President! With this mantra to save the upper 2% of the wealthy from paying taxes to sending off the manufacturing jobs overseas, I would say that, according to this president, "Every Man for Himself". As for himself, Ol' George W. Bush has pretty much garnered for his oil intersts those profits expected of him Now, connect the dots to international shipping through CSX, John Snow, and those other cronies so we can all ascertain how fast these good old states can be sold for!

It is amazing that the public has been kept in the shade, not dark. Anyone who deals with exporting/importing goods knows that most US Ports are already under foriegn country control. The Chinesee have been running the west coast ports for nearly 10 years.
Also, listen to what is being said: The company in charge of the operations has NOTHING to do with SECURITY. America is doing the security, so we should be worried.
Has America forgotten that one of our own, Veteran Timothy McVey was a terroist.

What is really going on? Since the beginning of this administration, they have been "unaware" and "nconcerned" about the issues facing the average American. It is mishap after mishap... WHERE PEOPLE DIE... warnings about 9/11 issued in the summer of '01 (WHERE PEOPLE DIED), no WMD nor any link b/w Iraq & 9/11 (WHERE PEOPLE ARE STILL DIEING), unresponsiveness to Katrina (WHERE PEOPLE DIED), and now the WH overlooking how this deal with the UAE would affect our national security... LONG TERM, where a WMD could be smuggled into our ports and PEOPLE WOULD DIE! We as a people, not just our reps in DC, need to educate and rally those who are unaware of the failings of this administration. We must not turn over the daily operations of our MAJOR PORTS to a foreign country, esp one with ties to Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and esp 9/11. We welcome members of the Arab world into our homes, but must never give them the KEYS!

Mr Gregory,

The issue is NOT whether an Arabian country takes over these ports, although the history of this recently-turned "ally on terror" is a very serious cause for concern, and the deal should be reviewed (and most likely cancelled) as a function of this bad behavior, not according to nationality.

Neither is the issue a function of Bush's far-too-recently-found respect for the financial complexities of globalization and the Real-Politik of multi-lateral decision-making, if he's even found that, and there's overwhelming evidence indicating that his current position is far more about his ongoing efforts to satisfy well-heeled constituents than his transparent pretense to Arabian sensitivities.

The real issue is this: The vast majority of US incoming cargo is not scrutinized by anyone, and instead of heeding the calls for sharply increasing port-security resources, which started, let's say, as long ago as 9/11, Bush is now outsourcing even that duty.

Sure the US Coast Guard escorts ships to and from the docks and oceans, and would continue to do so.

Sure US Customs inspects incoming containers and cargo, and would continue to do so, but it is a very small percentage (less than 5%) of containers.

No doubt we have all manner of both overt and covert personnel deployed domestically and around the world to make sure the unthinkable doesn't get through our ports.

Thanks must and do go to the Coast Guard, Customs, and ALL those personnel working for US safety.

However, Bush/Homeland Security has completely dropped the ball on port security, and is, once again, outsourcing national security for a few bucks.

If Bush/Homeland Security had a SERIOUS inspection regime, none of this would be an issue. Every airline passenger in the US must nearly disrobe and must have every piece of carry-on baggage invaded prior to boarding, and many (but not enough) checked bags are examined also. We must, first and foremost, approach this level of scrutiny with containers and cargo entering our ports, and not get lost in the over-blown rhetoric surrounding this one deal.

No one is saying, for example, that the UAE can't do business with the US; instead, critics are saying the UAE can not have the one business of running US ports. Neither, I hope, is anyone seriously willing to put the bottom line of a single (or even a few) US manufacturer(s) ahead of national security.

As soon as we attain real security, and not before, we can entertain rational discussions of equity in the global economy and whether, of all our foreign military ports in the region, we absolutely need this one in the UAE, or whether cancelling the port deal would really result in loss of the military relationship with the UAE.

The essence of that lengthy relationship, of course, is that military security by the US presence there provides the UAE with a rather high level of stability and safety to make a lot of money selling their oil. Those weighty mutual interests pre-date 9/11, and will survive well beyond this latest US port fiasco.

It's a crying shame that it looks like we are trapped into selling more or our ports to be able to recoup the money spent on New Orleans victoms. Notice I didn't say Katrina victoms. The people from New Orleans are the ones who have recieved the vast majority of moneys spent on ALL huricane relief in the last year and they are still clammoring for more. Now look where it has taken us.

>We can't coax autocratic, anti-western Arab governments to be more modern and to clamp down on jihadists in their countries if we tell them, "We want you to modernize, but you can't do any business in the U.S. because we don't trust Arabs."<

This isn't just doing business, and any thinking person knows the difference. I heard a caller to a radio show the other day who works for a Western US port stating that, "Before Bush, all containers were checked. Since Bush, it's only some, and shippers lie all the time about what's in their containers to pay lower taxes" - I have paraphrased, I was driving at the time and could not safely pull over and write down exactly what was said, but I thought it significant. I also had to wonder about one of the last statements made: "About 30,000 union jobs will be lost when they take over the Western ports, and everyone knows that's going to happen. They'll pay people 5 bucks an hour for security, and for 5 bucks an hour ..."

I guess we can shake and scratch our heads all we want, it isn't ever going to add up to anything logical. None of anything that happened over the last 5 years had anything to do with the safety and security of America, and now those in power are so bold not only are they not even bothering to hide that anymore, they're smearing our noses in it.

Ms. Deborah White raises a very crucial point in her blog, regarding how DWP will control 40% of the shipments of US military equipment/supplies to Iraq. Journalists and our Congress really MUST take note of this fact. To add to her blog, my comments are:
Bush says he was “in the dark” about the DWP deal -- is this outrageous, or what?! Bush’s statement proves, once again, that this man is either a pathological liar or asleep at the wheel of our ship of state. Neither is acceptable in a president. Bush is unfit to hold the highest office in America and deserves nothing short of impeachment.

And the administration’s nomination of DWP executive David Sanborn to head the Maritime Administration is more evidence of how the DWP deal is a friendly little kickback under the table to our so-called allies in the so-called war on terror from a White House that has no real concern or competence with national security, let alone transparency and accountability.

Yes, there are enemies in America already, and I'm not talking about Al Qaeda cells -- the most dangerous enemies of America are in our White House. Impeach! Impeach!

OK can someone please explain to me where the compassioniate side of Bush went on this one? Besides the obvious concerns am I the only one who sees the complete lack of compassion to the nation and the 911 families over this? I understand that this might represent little to no danger but are we really prepared to let the fox in the hen house? Defending it only suggests we have given in to greed.

If P&o has just renewed a contract in texas for loading and unloading U.S. military weapons, and now they sell their company to United Arab Emmirats Dubai, then Dubai will load and unload our weapons and are not a trustworthy company. That is a national security red flag. Crackheads are determined to get crack. And they do. Maniacs probably fall into the same catagory. The UAB might be somwhat trustworthy company but is not immune from infiltration by religions extremists. Harder to detect for Americans because of the language barrier. Outsourcing? Why? American soil American Jobs American Economy Americans supplys American Consumers. Less rich less poor. Cut wasted spending. Ethonal for energy from corn.

Why is it ok for companies based in unfriendly communist Asia to manage our ports but not companies owned by friendly Arabs? This lack of common sense on issues is expected from the American media and the idiots on both sides of the isle in Washington. But now this simplistic, racist knee jerk hatred seems to be coming from average American's.

I smell a rat. Bush didn't know about this? If he didnt know why is he so adamant about seeing the deal go through? Who did know? Cheney? This entire situation is suspicious and we are not getting the whole story nor are we getting the entire unvarnished truth. I pray that someone in Washington gets to the bottom of this. It looks shady, there is lying but where does the lie originate?Who really owns the United States, the people? the govt? or foreign countries?

Curious George says, "people don't need to worry about security."

Ho ho ho, ha ha ha, he he he!

Yes, curious George is a "special" child.