Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Cronyism Trumps Homeland Security





















Ahhhh. That explains it!

As I said the other day, the sheer, outrageous stupidity of putting our ports in control of the UAE begs the question: what is really going on here? Whose pockets are being lined with moolah from this idiotic deal?

It only took a day to get some answers.

It seems the White House has some ties--two have come to light so far-- to the Dubai firm that won BushCo's backing to run six US ports.

The first connection is Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose agency conveniently heads the federal panel that signed off on the $6.8 billion sale of an English company to government-owned Dubai Ports World. The year after leaving Bush's cabinet, Snow was chairman of the CSX rail firm that sold its own international port operations to DP World for $1.15 billion in 2004.

Bet that put a nice spike into the Snow family bank account. Heck of a job, Johnny.

The second connection is David Sanborn, who heads DP World's European and Latin American operations and was chosen last month by Bush to head the US Maritime Administration. Heck of a choice, Bushie.

These 'ties', otherwise known as 'big time crony deals', exacerbated concerns about the decision, made with no Congressional oversight, to hand over our port control to a nation linked to the 9/11 hijackers.

There's also a question as to whether a 1993 congressional measure mandating a 45-day probe when the company is owned by a foreign government and the purchase "could result in control of a person engaged in interstate commerce in the U.S. that could affect the national security of the U.S."--was ignored. Heck of a way to operate, guys.

Now, doesn't all of this make you feel all warm and secure about Bushie's cliched reassurances? I mean, when Bush says, "Trust me," how could we possibly not believe him? We trusted him about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, right? And look how swell that's turned out.

Can hardly wait for more "ties" to the White House to emerge.

Read more.

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