Bias and security

RARELY HAS Washington flared so quickly into superheated charge and countercharge as it has over the prospect of a Dubai-based company taking over the management of several US ports.

On this one, President Bush's instincts are correct. Unfortunately, as Republican congressional leaders vie with Democrats to be the most inflammatory opponents, an accelerant feeding the flames looks disturbingly like anti-Arab bias. The ports, including New York, Philadelphia, and Miami, are now managed by a British firm, which is selling that business to DP World of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Bush asked why a Middle Eastern company should face a higher standard, and he still hasn't gotten an answer.

It is true that two of the Sept. 11 hijackers were from the United Arab Emirates, but also true that the government there has been an ally in tracking down Al Qaeda operatives. Britain, of course, has been Bush's strongest ally in both the Iraq war and the fight against terrorists, but it was also the home of Richard Reid, the shoe bomber who tried to blow up an American jetliner.

What is not true is that the change in port management from one foreign company to another should in any way jeopardize security. Companies based in Japan, Denmark, and Britain now run most ports in the United States. And management is entirely separate from security, which is and will still be controlled by the US Coast Guard and the US Customs Service.

Another point that seems to have been missed by all the demagogues is this: If a bomb were to explode inside a container or a ship arriving in New York Harbor tomorrow, it would have been loaded elsewhere -- at some faraway port managed by a company that the US government would have no control over. Stateside security is still most important -- and badly needs beefing up -- but that will not be affected by the DP World deal.

One of the few rational comments came yesterday from Senator John McCain: ''We all need to take a moment and not rush to judgment on this matter. . . . Surely [this] administration deserves the presumption that they would not sell our security short."

Some aspects of the case deserve greater scrutiny, including the lackadaisical approach by Bush and his administration in reviewing the deal, and the possibility that administration insiders had some connection with the financial arrangements.

But the idea, suggested by many in Congress, that all Arab companies should be excluded from such business deals simply because they are Arab smacks of a xenophobia that is unsettling morally and likely counter to US interests in the global economy.

Bush's warnings, in his State of the Union address, about isolationist tendencies from both left and right seemed exaggerated at the time, but here they are full blown.