UAE Ports Deal In Trouble

You are probably well aware Rep. Jerry Lewis(R-clever) amended a finance bill so UAE could not get control of several US ports. If not, you can see the story over at CNN.com.

I've posted earlier how clever I thought it was for Rep. Lewis to choose the bill he did to amend. If Bush does veto it, as he has threatened to do, he will be withholding money for Katrina relief and our fighting forces in Afganistan and Iraq. Now wouldn't that make him look sillier than he already does?

Anyway, the story I linked to above had this in it.

Speaking Tuesday, before the House committee vote, DP World Chairman Sultan Bin Sulayem expressed confidence that the transaction will pass congressional muster and reiterated that security is a primary concern of the company.

(snip)

Bin Sulayem said Tuesday he has "no doubt" that the 45-day review will allay congressional concerns. And while Sulayem said he appreciates scrutiny from lawmakers, he also said Congress doesn't thoroughly understand the particulars of the deal, "even though the White House does." [emphasis mine]

OK, you don't know how long I took between pasting the quote from the article and writing this sentence. Well in between, I was rolling on the floor, laughing my ass off. I'm sure its impossible the intelligence of Bush and his administration is superior to our representatives.

The only way the White House could know more than Congress is if Bushco are behaving in their usual secretive way. They would have had to withhold information for them to know more.

Being a very lazy blogger, I'll suggest you Google Blog Search"uae ports bush"...nevermind, I actually did it and found an excellent starter article at MediaMatters. They explain many of the reasons for rejecting this ports deal. There also are some fine posts on progressive blogs about how stuff actually moves through ports and how simple it is to elude security.