Actually, you do. The deails of the deals are always secret to some extent because they require the company to give information that isn’t public knowledge.
But the fact that the deal was being made was not secret. It has been discussed in the press months ago. As far back as September, the London Times had an article announcing DP World’s intention to buy out P&O.
It’s my understanding that this deal will also turn over port operations in other countries to DP World. Is any other country making a stink about this?
Treasury Secretary Snow said he had no knowledge that the company he once headed, CSX Corp., had sold its global port assets to Dubai Ports World for $1.15 billion in 2004 – the year after Snow left to join the administration.
Congresswoman Kaptur said she’s concerned because Secretary Snow used to be the CEO of the CSX Corporation which, in 2004, was acquired by Dubai Ports World. She tells News 11 Snow has a deferred compensation package with CSX worth millions of dollars. She said the package includes a special retirement pension.
Not secret, true, but with its implications still well hidden from the general public.
How would this news register with all but a handful of Americans? My guess is, “Oh, one company I’d never heard of is buying up another one I’ve never heard of…now, what’s going on in Dilbert today?”
Given his track record of the last five years? Not bleepin’ likely, IMO.
Personal profits, sure; let’s remember that the Bush family has deep ties to many royal families in the Middle East.
The notion that Bush is driving for this deal out of the selfless goodness of his heart for the benefit of the nation as a whole, on the other hand, has as much plausibility as claiming that Saddam’s secular regime were close buddies with Bin Laden’s radical fundamentalists.
ok, do you believe that a man with an ongoing financial interest (let alone nostalgia) in a company the size of csx (the old Chessie Systems) doesn’t know when a large component is acquired?
Odder things have happened. If true, I wonder about the guy. I guess he doesn’t keep up with his former acquaintances of six years + or read the business press too carefully. If false, it would appear that Snow is lying.
That sounds more like a general concern about port security, with which I agree, rather than a specific concern about DPW. Note your own quote does not distinguish between BPW and P&O.
I read it as not distinguishing between their assets, as the assets of the one are presumably soon to become the assets of the other.
Going on from there, what’s clear is that the Coast Guard is noting their limitations: on account of the intelligence gaps, they can’t say that a problematic port operator wouldn’t be able to compromise port security.
One of the recurring points made by supporters of the deal, in this thread and elsewhere, is that the port operator really doesn’t make much of a difference with respect to port security. The Coast Guard’s saying we don’t know that.
The opening paragraph of the article says they’re less than certain about DPW itself.
I wouldn’t expect the Coast Guard to know much about DPW or Dubai. It’s the Coast Guard, afterall. Farnkly, Dubai is much more likely to be the target of a terror attack than to be the instigator-- it hosts the largest number of US Naval ships outside the US. It’s a staging point for our operations in Afghansitan and Iraq.
I understand that this is a great political opportunity for the Democrats, and I don’t blame them for exploiting it. But to hear the amount of xenophobia coming from supposedly “progressive” politicians has my hypocracy meter going off the scale. DPW is a highly respected company which manages ports in 15 countries around the world, including Germany and Australia. After acquiring P&O, they’ll add 2 ports in Britain, 3 in France, 2 in Belgium, and 4 more in Australia. AFAICT, we’re the only country up in arms about this.
Yeah! And the National Guard wouldn’t have a thing to do with putting down an insurgency in a foreign country!
Fear of strangers? Try fear of strangers being responsible for American security. Is that hypocritical? How so? When have “progressives” ever suggested that we should put foreign governments in charge of any American governmental responsibility on par with security?
They won’t be responsible for security. But I think what we’ll see is that DPW will set up a US subsidiary, run and operated by US citizens, with a hefty firewall bewteen it and the parent company. That’ll be enough to assuage the fears of at least enough Pubs in Congress to sustain a presidential veto.
The reality, IMO, lies somewhere between these two sentiments. While the USCG isn’t exactly on the cutting edge of foreign intelligence, it’s not exactly in the dark on these matters, either. For starters, the CG works very closely with all other military/intelligence/law enforcements agencies on matters which pertain to all maritime issues. The CG has a keen interest in all major shipping industry players for a variety of reasons - not just security. In addition, prior to the MTSA and ISPS regulations going into effect in 2004, CG teams visited and conducted port security inspections of all major world ports for which we had access. We use that information when screening vessels arriving from foreign ports.
We’re good at what we do, but we’re not always the subject matter specialists that some would have you believe. We’re stretched way too thin for that.
I gather you’re either in the Coast Guard, or affiliated with it somehow?
I agree that you can’t be expected to be omniscient (indeed, my point in citing the article I did was that the Coast Guard was saying it didn’t know the things it ought to, to be able to render a firm conclusion either way on this deal), but is there an institution out there that’s better informed than the CG in this area?
I’m in the CG, and I happen to work in the office that handles port security for this port. And yes, we have a P&O facility in this port. I deal with the foreign ships that arrive, and don’t deal with the facility side of things all that much, although we’re all in the same space.
As for who’s the most informed in this area? It would be the CG and Customs (CPB), with a lot of help from all the other agencies with a stake in security such as FBI, NSA, CIA, ONI, etc, etc, etc. Information from all parties involved flows towards the primary agencies responsible for a certain area - in this case it would be the CG and CBP.
However, my earlier post was in response to the expectation that “the Coast Guard to be intimately aware of everything about every country that impacts cargo coming into this country.” IMO, that’s an unrealistic expectation of a small service with a ton of different missions. That’s a lot of countries and the CG isn’t a pure intelligence agency.
And indeed, that’s what this Administration is saying. They’ve crapped all over the U.N., the Geneva Conventions, and “Old Europe”, but hey, Dubai Ports World, they’re totally worthy of our trust, even if their owner is a country that until a few years ago had close ties with Osama bin Laden.
