Dubai: More ports than thought; poll; Thomas Kean; trading arms for national security?

Our "American" president continues to sell out this country: "22 ports in Arab deal, not just 6 as reported":

According to the website of P&O Ports, the port-operations subsidiary of the London-based Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. (P&O), DPW will pick up stevedore services at 12 East Coast ports including Portland, Maine; Boston; Davisville, R.I.; New York; Newark; Philadelphia; Camden, N.J.; Wilmington, Del.; Baltimore, Md.; and Virginia locations at Newport News, Norfolk, and Portsmouth.

Additionally, DPW will take over P&O stevedoring operations at nine ports along the Gulf of Mexico including the Texas ports of Beaumont, Port Arthur, Galveston, Houston, Freeport, and Corpus Christi, plus the Louisana ports of Lake Charles and New Orleans...

Also, only 17 percent of Americans are in favor of Bush's scheme.

And, Thomas Kean from the 9/11 commission says the deal never should have been considered:

"From our point of view, we don't want foreigners controlling our ports... From their point of view, this is a legitimate company that had a legitimate bid and won, and here are all these congressmen saying all these things about not wanting this company. It looks to them like it's anti-Arab... I think this deal is going to be killed," Kean said. "The question is how much damage is this going to do to us before it's killed."

Here's a fact sheet on the deal from an industry association.

And:

"The UAE [arms] market is definitely important to the US," said Tom Baranauskas, a senior Middle East analyst at the Connecticut-based Forecast International, a leading provider of defense market intelligence services. "Just the order for 80 of the newest-generation F-16E/Fs alone was a major buy from the US," he said.

Terrorism · Sat, 02/25/2006 - 10:02 · · Importance: 1