Clinton bill seeks to stop sale of US ports to Arabs
President Bush supports acquisition
WASHINGTON -- Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton of New York and Robert Menendez of New Jersey introduced legislation to prohibit companies owned or controlled by foreign governments from buying US port operations.
The measure is intended to block the $6.8 billion sale of a company that operates six US ports to a firm controlled by the United Arab Emirates.
''Our port security is too important to place in the hands of foreign governments," Clinton said in a statement yesterday.
On Thursday, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers called for hearings on the purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., the UK's largest port operator, by DP World, Dubai's port company. With the acquisition, DP World would gain control over most operations at ports in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore, and New Orleans.
''Ports are the front lines of the war on terrorism," Menendez said. ''We wouldn't turn the Border Patrol or the Customs Service over to a foreign government, and we can't afford to turn our ports over to one either."
Lawmakers have also asked the Bush administration to conduct a more thorough review of the purchase. On Thursday, 7 lawmakers sent a letter to Treasury Secretary John Snow asking a government panel, known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, to look into the purchase.
Snow said yesterday that while he had not seen the congressional requests for an additional review, the committee was ''thorough, and carefully considered the issue of national security in that acquisition."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the administration continued to support the sale and would brief members of Congress on its decision.
Rice described Abu Dhabi as ''a very good friend" of the United States. ''I hope our friends in Abu Dhabi would not be offended by the fact that in our democracy we debate these things," she said.
Two of the Sept. 11 attackers were citizens of the United Arab Emirates and the country's banking system helped transfer money to the plotters, Senator Charles Schumer, one of the signatories to the letter, said Thursday.
''I approach this with a great deal of dubiousness," Schumer, a New York Democrat, told reporters in Washington. ''The chances for infiltration are just too great." 