Some security people think the DP World deal isnt a good thing. Even Lou Dobbs has problems with it.
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from Wash Post:

Joseph King, who headed the customs agency's anti-terrorism efforts under the Treasury Department and the new Department of Homeland Security, said national security fears are well grounded. He said a company the size of Dubai Ports World would be able to get hundreds of visas to relocate managers and other employees to the United States. Using appeals to Muslim solidarity or threats of violence, al-Qaeda operatives could force low-level managers to provide some of those visas to al-Qaeda sympathizers, said King, who for years tracked similar efforts by organized crime to infiltrate ports in New York and New Jersey. Those sympathizers could obtain legitimate driver's licenses, work permits and mortgages that could then be used by terrorist operatives. Dubai Ports World could also offer a simple conduit for wire transfers to terrorist operatives in the Middle East. Large wire transfers from individuals would quickly attract federal scrutiny, but such transfers, buried in the dozens of wire transfers a day from Dubai Ports World's operations in the United States to the Middle East would go undetected, King said.
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"The administration did not require Dubai Ports to keep copies of business records on U.S. soil, where they would be subject to court orders. It also did not require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate U.S. government requests. Outside legal experts said such obligations are routinely attached to U.S. approvals of foreign sales in other industries."
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from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/24/AR2006022401874_2.html

Joseph King, a John Jay College professor and former counterterrorism chief of the Customs Bureau in New York, described port managers as akin to kings. "They have access to the computers for the Coast Guard and customs; they can track containers; they oversee security contracts," King said. "New York's ports are badly enough defended because Bush has ignored us. This is just another nail in the coffin."
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Mr. Chertoff is the third Cabinet official to acknowledge he did not know his agency had signed off on the plan as a member of the interagency Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS). Both Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Treasury Secretary John W. Snow have publicly said they were unaware of the deal. But Mr. Chertoff's exclusion is more noteworthy because his department headed the CFIUS review and is in charge of security at all U.S. ports.
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Bush's safety plan

I've finally figured out George W. Bush's plan to make America safer: Attack and occupy a country that wasn't involved in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and turn our nation's ports over to a country that was.
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from Lou Dobbs:

DOBBS: Peninsula and Oriental Steam Navigation is a British privately owned company. Dubai Ports World is a UAE government controlled and owned company. You see the difference, of course. And furthermore, the money used to fund the 9/11 attacks, most of it, in fact, was sent to the hijackers through the UAE banking system. In fact, two of the hijackers were originally from the UAE. The UAE stonewalled U.S. efforts to track al Qaeda bank accounts after 9/11. In addition, the Emirates does not recognize Israel as a sovereign state. And the UAE was a transfer point for shipments of nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

DOBBS: 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.

Christine Romans reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): 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.

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. 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." 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.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: 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.

DOBBS: Lobbyists as representation, including Bob Dole. It's a remarkable effort. It's a -- it can be a tremulous feeling to stand between $7 billion and those who want to exchange that money irrespective of the consequences.
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UAE gave $1 million to Bush library
By WENDY BENJAMINSON
Associated Press

A sheik from the United Arab Emirates contributed at least $1 million to the Bush Library Foundation, which established the George Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M University in College Station. The UAE owns Dubai Port Co., which is taking operations from London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which operates six U.S. ports. A political uproar has ensued over the deal, which the White House approved without congressional oversight.
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>I have seen estimates between 5 and 7% as far as how many containers are inspected. (I believe they are all scanned for radioactive material, but only a small percentage are opened up and visually inspected). I agree with you that is the real problem. However, getting back to my point, that is done by U.S. Customs or the Coast Guard, one or the other, not the company the contract is with.
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>Yes, two of the 9/11 perpetrators were from the UAE. Yes, Dubai banks are widely believed to be conduits for terrorist money. But we have as good a relationship with the government as we have anywhere in the Arab world (other than Israel, of course). They are modernizing rapidly. I don't think we should be antagonizing them with an "if you've seen one Arab, you've seen them all" attitude.
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>Again, the company that has the dock contract has very little to do with the operation of the dock, and nothing to do with security. That is the responsibility of the U.S. government (Customs and the Coast Guard) and has been for a long time. There is absolutely nothing new about dock contracts going to foreign companies. When you talk about globalization, the shipping industry is about as global as it gets.
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>I think the administration has badly mismanaged this deal and the way it was announced. How could they not have been concerned about a backlash, especially in an election year? They should have briefed Congress much earlier (there's that imperial attitude again) and explained the specifics of the deal. Instead we wound up with a bunch of opportunistic Congresscritters up on stumps beating their chests about a nonexistent "Arab threat."
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>>Well, it may be a tempest in a teapot, but I think it bears more investigation. ONe problem is that they only inspect less than 5% of all containers that are shipped through our ports. Regardless of who owns the business, it needs tightening up. Another problem with the UAE is that they have been a conduit for terrorist funding and there were a few of them on the planes that crashed 9/11. I just don't trust them. Politically, I think Bush must have lost his mind. Less than 25% of the country trusts the Arabs and he's out beating the drum for them and amnesty for illegal aliens. I'll be glad when we get a real conservative in office again. I wonder if we could dig Ronnie up and just put things on autopilot?<g>
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>>>This is a tempest in a teapot if ever there was one. It has been stirred up by politicians (both parties) in an election year. The only surprising thing is that so many people have fallen for it. You know I am no Dubya fan but I think he is getting a raw deal on this one. Some facts:
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>>>We are not giving new business to the company in Dubai. They are buying the British company which manages the ports now, and we are entitled to a review process according to the contract. Operation of the ports will be virtually unchanged, with most if not all jobs remaining with members of the longshoremen's union. Security will remain the responsibility of the Coast Guard and U.S. Customs. If people want to say the whole subject of dock security is something that needs to be reviewed, that's fine, and I will agree with them. But turning over management of the docks from a British company to a Dubai company will not change the security level. There are six docks in NYC and four of them are operated by foreign companies (Hong Kong and Denmark). During the review process 12 federal agencies, including Homeland Security, were asked to sign off on the deal and they did so unanimously. After the initial protests, Dubya asked the same 12 agencies again if they were OK with it, and
>>>again they unanimously said yes.