|
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
Rep. Mark Foley: ‘Outrage' Just Beginning on Ports Deal Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., told NewsMax Monday that "the outrage is just evolving" across the nation and on Capitol Hill with news that a state-owned business headquartered in the United Arab Emirates will soon be operating in major port cities across the United States.
Foley and a growing number of congressmen and Senators maintain that the deal – which apparently has the approval of the U.S. Treasury Department – will pose a grave risk to U.S. national security. The Arab company in question, Dubai Ports World, last week purchased the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., a British firm that currently operates facilities in six major U.S. ports.
Foley told NewsMax that he will be joined Tuesday afternoon in Miami by Rep. Vito Fossella, R-N.Y., whose district includes Staten Island.
Story Continues Below
The two congressmen plan to tour the port of Miami – one of the six major port operations affected by the sale. The others are New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans and Philadelphia.
Among other things, the pair will be meeting with representatives from a Miami company, Continental Stevedoring & Terminals Inc., which has just filed suit in a Florida court challenging the deal.
A subsidiary of Eller & Company Inc., the Miami company alleges in court papers that it will become an "involuntary partner" with Dubai's government under the sale.
"We are aware of the lawsuit, but cannot comment until our legal teams have a chance to review it," Michael Seymour, president of the North American arm of Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation, said Sunday in the company's first public response to the lawsuit.
The tour of the port and the meeting will be followed at 2 p.m. by a press conference at the port that has been called by the lawmakers.
"Members are traveling on recess," he noted, hoping to round up more concerned lawmakers to attend the Miami briefing and conference.
"We're going to be asking specific questions about the transfer of management," Foley said. "We want to raise the level of awareness about what's happening to these six strategic ports. Remember, New Orleans is the second largest in the world."
Foley is but one of several lawmakers on Capitol Hill that have complained that control over port operations by DP World could endanger U.S. security, noting the U.A.E.'s history as an operational and financial base for the hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Two of the 19 hijackers were citizens of the U.A.E. and reports indicate that the Gulf nation has been used as a conduit of al-Qaida money transfers.
More worrisome is that Pakistani officials have admitted they had used the U.A.E. to transit nuclear weapons equipment and technology to North Korea.
Foley was numbered among seven lawmakers who wrote to Treasury Secretary John Snow last week expressing concern that the Bush administration was not giving the case appropriate attention and urging the Treasury Secretary to make the Committee on Foreign Investments kick-off a full 45-day investigation.
"Our ports are our most vulnerable targets for terrorist attack," the letter said.
Foley, who serves on the House Ways and Means Committee, interrupted Hill hearings on the budget this past week to hone in on the issue with Snow.
Snow told the committee that he could not go into details, but that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States followed its regular processes in vetting the deal.
Foley emphasized to NewsMax that the U.A.E. was doing everything it could to encourage additional free trade with Iran, regardless of that country's insistence on pressing forward with its nuclear program.
The Florida lawmaker wondered aloud about a future scenario where an atomic-armed Iran launches at archenemy Israel. "Whose side will the U.A.E. be on?" he asked rhetorically.
Foley added that he was appreciative that the issue was evolving into a bi-partisan one, noting the strong position of Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat.
"Foreign control of our ports, which are vital to homeland security, is a risky proposition," Schumer said last week.
Foley also noted that the administration was "digging in" on the issue, but regardless, as a member of Ways and Means, he and others in Congress were "responsible for trade negotiations."
"Any reasonable person would be concerned," Foley concluded.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
Print Page 
Forward Page 
|
| All Rights Reserved © 2008 NewsMax.Com |