UAE: With US, Not the Terrorists

Nine days after September 11th, President Bush in a speech before a joint session of Congress declared: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

In that address he gave nations of the world a choice: you can side with the West and freedom, or you can side with the forces of darkness and evil and be prepared to reap the consequences. The President's remarks set U.S. national security policy in very clear terms. We would work with our friends and unite with them to oppose those who do not share our values.

My conclusion in the wake of opposition to the UAE ports deal (the political equivalent of a Muslim cartoon riot) is that the United Arab Emirates are on our side.

Frequent readers at Mike's America know that I have two longterm areas of interest: politics in general and national security in particular.

I join the very competent members of twelve government departments that make up the Committee on Foreign Investments who approved this deal. None of the members had any national security concern regarding this deal that would have automatically caused the deal to be delayed.

Those of us who voted to elect, and then to re-elect President Bush did so in part because of the incredible team of talented and able individuals he brought with him to manage government. We voted for President Bush because we found his Administration to be highly competent and in tune with our concerns for national security.

Democrats Serious About Port Security or Politics?

I have the very strong suspicion that those on the Democratic side of the aisle, who have consistently opposed every Bush initiative to protect our national security are now less concerned with that security than they are with the evident opportunity to drive another wedge in the President's political base.

And now we've had two weeks in a row where the President's agenda has been sidetracked. First, a solid week of Dick Cheney's shooting accident and now a solid week of the UAE ports deal. Iranian nukes and the fatwa allowing their use just dropped off the radar screen. As did the Hamas takeover of the Palestinian government. Oh, and when was the last time you heard that our economy was setting performance records?

One good thing to come out of this latest attempt to hijack the President's diminishing political capital is an overdue examination of port security, border security and foreign investment. Those are all issues of primary concern to conservatives. But do you really think the likes of Senator Schumer, Clinton, Boxer and the rest of defeat America wing of the Democratic Party are seriously interested in resolving those problems? Should we know take seriously the same bunch who crowed about killing the Patriot Act?

While I respect and admire the Republicans who have expressed their concerns over this deal, I wonder who they would rather put their trust in:

A. President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretaries Rice, Rumsfeld, Chertoff, Snow, Attorney General Gonzales

or

B. Senators Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, Carl Levin and Ted Kennedy?

Ports Deal Delayed: Time to Inform

The companies involved in the ports deal have announced a delay in the U.S. portion of their transaction to give President Bush and the Administration more time to calm fears of those opposing the deal.

With that objective in mind, the following information may be useful in expanding awareness of the issue:

From the Department of Homeland Security: "DP World will not, nor will any other terminal operator, control, operate or manage any United States port. DP World will only operate and manage specific, individual terminals located within six ports. "

• Baltimore - 2 of 14 total.
• Philadelphia - 1 of 5 (does not include the 1 cruise vessel terminal) .
• Miami - 1 of 3 (does not include the 7 cruise vessel terminals).
• New Orleans - 2 of 5 (does not include the numerous chemical plant terminals up and down the Mississippi River, up to Baton Rouge).
• Houston – 4 of 12.
• Newark – 1 of 4.

Remarks of General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

The military-to-military relationship with the United Arab Emirates is superb. They've got great seaports that are capable of handling, and do, our aircraft carriers. They've got airfields that they allow us to use, and their airspace, their logistics support. They've got a world-class air-to-air training facility that they let us use and cooperate with them in the training of our pilots. In everything that we have asked and work with them on, they have proven to be very, very solid partners.

Comments of Tommy Franks, Former CENTCOM commanding general:

"We have more U.S. Navy ships using the port in Dubai, Jebel Ali, than any other port outside the United States...We know he difference between an enemy and a friend. The Emirates is a friend...That is the best run port that I've ever seen."

An extensive report by the New York Sun: "Dubai is Said to Have Long Aided the U.S." A few excerpts:

For at least a decade, intelligence officials in Dubai have quietly shared detailed banking records of suspected terrorists, and even neighboring officials in Iran, with American intelligence agencies.

The financial intelligence from Dubai, a principality known as the Switzerland of the Middle East for its closed banking system, has been particularly useful in tracking down much of the money to Saudi charities that have been in league with Al Qaeda, former CIA officials said.
...
[D]ocuments relating to the Treasury Department's decision to allow the deal showed that the Bush administration attached strict conditions for the sale, requiring the Dubai company to cooperate with future American investigations and disclose internal operations records on demand.
...
[F]ormer senior intelligence officials said the UAE has been a strong ally in counterterrorism since long before September 11.

"They could not be more cooperative in terms of knowing who is in their country and what is going on there," a former CIA operations officer in the Middle East, Robert Baer, said yesterday.

Mr. Baer, whose life story was the inspiration for the Hollywood movie, "Syriana," called the UAE's historic cooperation "unprecedented for the region." "They reported to us that one of the hijackers was coming through the country. They have provided travel documentation, kept track of Iranians, and did the best they could in Saudi Arabia."

Mr. Baer also said that after September 11, after Mr. Baer retired from the agency, the security services for the Emirates were instrumental in shutting down money transfer operations known as Hawalas preferred by Islamists because of Islam's prohibition on charging and collecting interest. Mr. Baer said the Emirates were the first country to promise not to allow the Hawala money to be transferred to accounts in America. "They were instrumental in helping us track the money from Saudi Arabia connected to 9/11," he added.

A former colleague of Mr. Baer at the CIA, David Manners, concurred yesterday. "For as long as I've been involved in Middle Eastern affairs, the word around the agency was that these guys were pretty helpful." He added, "They have been helpful on the banking front, very cooperative."
...
The Emirates have also cooperated with America in other facets of the war on terror. In November 2002 authorities there apprehended the man known as Al Qaeda's admiral, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. According to the 9/11 Commission, Mr. Nashiri attempted the attack on the USS Sullivans in January 2000 and later that year in October the attack on the USS Cole off the port of Aden.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that on September 21, 2005:

[T]he United Arab Emirates contributed $100 million to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, officials confirmed Thursday.

The Bush administration said the money it received from the United Arab Emirates was nearly four times as much as it received from all other countries combined. Other countries, including some in the Middle East, also pledged large contributions but have not yet sent the money.

And this from Jonah Goldberg in the Los Angeles Times "Going Overboard":

For five years, Republicans have chanted "trust the president" on national security. They even won elections on the issue. For nearly five years, Democrats have said President Bush should use more carrots and fewer sticks in his diplomacy in the Muslim world. They argued that we need to reward our allies with trade and trust (except when we actually did it in places such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia). Liberals lectured that equating "Muslim" or "Arab" and "terrorist" is not only bigoted but counterproductive, in that it will feed the "root causes" of terrorism.

But suddenly, virtually all leading Republicans and Democrats — with the laudable exception of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) — now argue that Bush can't be trusted on national security, that our Arab ally the UAE should go suck eggs and that racial profiling of foreign firms is just fine. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) now even thinks Halliburton should run the ports. And Jimmy Carter is backing the White House.

At this rate, Barbra Streisand will soon be holding benefit concerts for Pennsylvania's conservative Sen. Rick Santorum.

You may also be interested in Flopping Aces comprehensive roundup on this story. If you visit, make sure to read Curt's point by point conclusions on the issue here.