WASHINGTON — President Bush, defying bipartisan opposition, said Tuesday he would veto legislation seeking to halt an Arab company’s takeover of operations at a half-dozen major ports, including New York, Miami and Houston.
The confrontation gained steam after the Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist (R., Tenn.), and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R., Ill.) joined Democrats such as Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chuck Schumer (both N.Y.) in calling for the deal to be blocked or delayed in order to undergo more intensive scrutiny.
“After careful review by our government, I believe the transaction ought to go forward,” Bush said aboard Air Force One, according to transcripts released by the White House.
“They ought to listen to what I have to say about this,” Bush told reporters, referring to opponents. “They ought to look at the facts and understand the consequences of what they’re going to do. But if they pass a law, I’ll deal with it, with a veto.”
Bush defended the review by the federal Committee on Foreign Investment and questioned why Congress had taken a “sudden” interest in the deal that has Dubai Ports World, owned by the United Arab Emirates, purchasing U.K.-based Peninsular & Oriental Steamship Navigation Co., which operates port facilities in New York and New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, New Orleans and Houston. Dubai Ports would not control security.
“I really don’t understand why it’s OK for a British company to operate our ports, but not a company from the Middle East, when our experts are convinced that port security is not an issue, that having worked with this company, they’re convinced that … they’ll work with those who are in charge of the U.S. government’s responsibility for securing the ports,” the President said.
Frist said in a statement that the sale raised “serious questions regarding the safety and security of our homeland,” and that the “decision to finalize this deal should be put on hold until the administration conducts a more extensive review of this matter.”
The interagency committee conducted a 30-day review of the acquisition and all 12 agency members, plus two additional representatives from the departments of Transportation and Energy, agreed that the transaction could proceed and no further investigation was warranted, Tony Fratto, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Treasury Department, said at a news briefing. The panel includes officials from the Departments of Defense, State, Commerce, Homeland Security and the White House.
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“The committee is not charged [under current law] to determine whether the transaction is going to be popular. They are charged with determining whether the transaction poses a risk to the national security of the United States,” Fratto said.
“Had there not been a consensus allowing the transaction to proceed, it would have gone to a 45-day investigation period and that was not warranted in this case,” Fratto said. “They felt comfortable the security concerns were sufficiently addressed.”
Four senators, including Clinton and Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), sent a letter to Frist urging him to take up legislation they plan to introduce that would block the sale of U.S. port operations to foreign governments.
Schumer and Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.) said they intended to submit emergency legislation next week that would block the sale and send it back for a 45-day review. King joined Schumer at his Manhattan office for a news conference to decry the deal, which is scheduled to close March 2 and is estimated to be worth $6.8 billion.
“The review has been casual and cursory,” said Schumer, who referred to the UAE as a country with “a nexus with terrorism.”