Whatever the WH Says About UAE, It’s a LIE

For the last twenty-four hours, the White House flacks have been dancing as fast as they can. Now they are saying they should have informed members of Congress about the Dubai deal sooner. Now they are saying the good folks in Voterland should have been properly indoctrinated about the sale of US ports to the UAE. Some Republicans in Congress are already prostrating themselves and murmuring, “Yes, Master, if you had informed us, we’d have no doubts. I’m bending over, Master, do what you will.” The lube job was starting to work, and then the Grand High Glorious Ruler of the Royal Order of Sons of Assholes blew it again. Speaking from the Baboon Lodge yesterday the Prez said he knew nothing of the Dubai deal until he learned about it from news reports. This is the first truthful thing George W. Bush has said in five years. But it is astounding that the White House assumed the American people would find solace in a President who not only knows NOTHING about ANYTHING but having admitted his ignorance then vowed to veto any measure by Congress that would mitigate his profound stupidity. Supervised leaks from the White House are beginning to appear. Note this AP item: “According to documents obtained by the Associated Press, under a secretive agreement with the Bush administration, a company in the United Arab Emirates promised to cooperate with U.S. investigations as a condition of its takeover of operations at six major American ports.” Uh-huh. Notice that this well-timed revelation says “secretive agreement”, not secret agreement. It’s total and complete bullshit. Last night CNN’s Lou Dobbs was on the right track when he said, “President Bush's family and members of the Bush administration have long-standing business connections with the United Arab Emirates, and those connections are raising new concerns and questions tonight in some quarters about why the president is defying his very own party leadership and his party in defending the Dubai port deal.” CNN’s Christine Romans was even more enlightening. She said, “The oil-rich United Arab Emirates is a major investor in The Carlyle Group, the private equity investment firm where President Bush's father once served as senior adviser and is a who's who of former high-level government officials. Just last year, Dubai International Capital, a government-backed buyout firm, invested in an $8 billion Carlyle fund.” Romans went on to say,“Another family connection, the president's brother, Neil Bush, has reportedly received funding for his educational software company from the UAE investors. A call to his company was not returned.” “Then there is the cabinet connection,” Romans said. “Treasury Secretary John Snow was chairman of railroad company CSX. After he left the company for the White House, CSX sold its international port operations to Dubai Ports World for more than a billion dollars. “In Connecticut today, Snow told reporters he had no knowledge of that CSX sale. ‘I learned of this transaction probably the same way members of the Senate did, by reading about it in the newspapers.’” Romans continued, “Another administration connection, President Bush chose a Dubai Ports World executive to head the U.S. Maritime Administration. David Sanborn, the former director of Dubai Ports' European and Latin American operations, he was tapped just last month to lead the agency that oversees U.S. port operations. “Now, some members of Congress, some of whom have already confirmed Sanborn, say they'd like to take a closer look at this nomination. But it's not just administration connections that Dubai has in this deal, Lou. It's now aggressively lining up representation on the Hill, bipartisan representation. The United Arab Emirates not only has friends in high places in government, it also has high-powered lobbying connections. This oil- rich nation has been lavishing hundreds of thousands of dollars on K Street, lobbying friends to push its point of view and its goals. One of those friends we found out today is none other than Senator Dole, former Senator Dole.” A big question that should be asked, is: How is Dubai Ports World going to finance the $6.9 billion bucks it will take to buy P & O (Peninsula and Oriental Steam Navigation Company)? Frank Gaffney, Jr. in his Washington Times article “Ports of CFIUS Call” says the UAE intends to raise nearly the whole amount from international capital markets. Who will these foreign investors be? Gaffney asks. And what if their intentions are not honorable? And if the UAE comes to American investors, will Americans be told? “For that matter,” Gaffney said, “Will the underwriters, Barclays and Deutsche Bank, reveal to prospective funders the real risk that the deal will ultimately fall through?” By the way, Dubai Ports World, the new owners of P and O, will be in charge of heavy armor, helicopters and other military materiel that go through the Texas seaports of Beaumont and Corpus Christi. Do you think our enemies who just happen to live in the UAE nabe might like to do damage to those shipments? Let me repeat: Anything the Bush administration says about the Dubai deal has been and will be a lie.