Three More Reasons Why The UAE Shouldn't Be Entrusted With Our Ports...

[ProSense]

Saturday :: Feb 25, 2006

Three More Reasons Why The UAE Shouldn't Be Entrusted With Our Ports Of Entry

by Steve Soto

Now that the Bush Administration has decided to ram the Dubai ports deal through without regard for what Congress thinks, I suppose it is a tad bit inconvenient to point out that Dubai's commitment to tight port security is, ah, a little lax:

Reader Joe Musco points us to the following testimony just last year in front of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, in which our own Chief of Staff to the US Mission to the United Nations, told Congress that the UAE was participating in the ferrying of prohibited goods to and from Saddam Hussein in violation of the UN sanctions.

Musco also points us to the fact that the UAE allowed the Al Wasel and Babel Company to be set up as a front for Saddam Hussein, so that he could violate the sanctions by engaging in kickbacks and attempts to procure such lovely things like surface-to-air missile systems. Who said so? Why, John Snow’s Treasury Department, that’s who. Although the UAE eventually shut down the Al Wasel and Babel Company, they continue to allow its parent company the Lootah Group to operate inside the country as their version of Halliburton, a giant enterprise also named the Lootah General Trading Company, which operates among other things a container inspection business. The Lootah Group has already been identified as a front company that violated the “Oil for Food” program by the Treasury Department and as a front company for Saddam by Charles Duelfer in his report for the CIA. So how can the right wing in this country use the Oil for Food program as a whipping boy anymore against anyone if they themselves now want to turn our ports of entry over to a country that itself was complicit?

And to cap it off, reader Kim Stewart directs us to this gem, in http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/64126.htm">today’s New York Post (registration required), of all places:

Al Qaeda warned the government of the United Arab Emirates more than three years ago that it "infiltrated" key government agencies, according to a disturbing document released by the U.S. military.

more…

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/006943.php

[Kagemusha]

1. I bet a lot of the goods shipped to Saddam were from US companies.

Just my two cents about it.

[pauldp]

2. So Al Qaeda has infiltrated UAE agencies according to the US Military.

Man you can't make this stuff up.
:banghead:

[radfringe]

3. read this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2481631

[0007]

4. I did, and that's the ticket. But trying to get the sheeple into

the act, is the real trick.

[radfringe]

5. trying to make it as painless as possible

hoping to get a list together of why we object to the deal and put it in a "template" type letter that people can then use to send their own versions...

but yeah - it's like pulling teeth out of a rabid t-rex on steriods

[0007]

6. Just getting 'em to sign their name is a toughie.

I think if they could be offered something free. Perhaps a lotto type thingy may be the key? I don't know! :shrug:

[radfringe]

7. lotto type thingy

free duct tape, plastic sheeting and a gas mask to the first 100 responders?
:evilgrin:

[Cuauhtla]

8. Free port and banking center...

The port of Jebel Ali is used in the shipment of US military material, and also has served as a safe port-of-call for the US Navy. I've been there many times myself, and found that in spite of tensions in the region, in spite of large numbers of people in the UAE from around the world including the tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, it is relatively safe.

My suspicion has always been that the royals have made mutually beneficial deals with the US, with AQ, to keep the UAE a place safe for commerce, banking, etc. Each side has benefitted from the arrangement. Should the theoretical arrangement break-down, it will present difficulties for all sides.

It could be that the US wants something more, and the ports deal is a pay-off.

***
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***

[newyawker99]

9. Hi Cuauhtla!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: