Re: UAE Port Deal
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The deal calls for outsourcing the management of the ports, right? Howcan that not affect the overall security scenario? Even if the USCG supplies the actual security grunt personnel, if some of the management running the port were to be compromised by infiltration of terrorist operatives, they could look the other way when nukes or dirty bombs are brought into our ports--or worse. By the way, only 5% of our incoming containers are inspected anyway (compared to 100% in Hong Kong). Allowing those who are potentially closer to the enemy, to be in charge of operation of our ports, strikes me as highly imprudent.
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If a terrorist had a nuke they arn't going to risk letting it get discovered. Its going to detonate in the harbor before it even gets to the port. The only reason to bring a nuclear bomb into a port is if you wanted to transport it to some inland destination(unlikely targets becuase the likelyhood of discovery increases).
Containers are likely inspected at random and the people who manage the port will not know which containers will get inspected and which will not. I'm making that speculation based upon my own experience with govt' inspections.
I have worked for a federal contractor post 911 and the feds did my background checks. I suspect it will be the same with the Ports.
As far as infiltration goes, Title VII of the civil rights act of 1964 as currently amended makes that pretty easy already. This is a greater security vulnerability than allowing a British company that is a subsidary of a UAE company manage some of our ports.
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Allowing those who are potentially closer to the enemy, to be in charge of operation of our ports, strikes me as highly imprudent.
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A French company owns Target, when you walk into a Target store you don't see French employees. You see American employees from the CEO on down. The people doing the actual managing these ports are going to be Americans. They will report to people in Great Britian. The people in Great Britian are going to be the ones who report to the people in the UAE.
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Besides, why the need to do it all in the first place? Maybe save a bit of money? Looking at the total contract size it is small potatoes compared to what our country spends routinely on many other things.
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As a country we should honor our commitments and not snubb our allies. Allies who provide us bases to stike our enemies.
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And there are unacceptable risks, which even if low, are to be properly weighted very heavily because the disatrous result would be devastating. Look at it this way: odds vs. what we stand to win or lose. Even tiny increased odds of having nukes go off in our ports is unacceptable when it comes to saving a few hundred million dollars or even a billion, because losing those cities would cost us TRILLIONS. And that's just the financial cost.
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Lets turn it around. Suppose because of this the UAE stops letting us fly U2s and other aircraft out of its country. If this happens there is a chance one of our U2s will miss collecting valuable intelligence which we could have used to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. Or perhaps becuase we we lost our base in the UAE, we weren't able to get that predator drone up in the air to kill a Yemeniese terrorist cell planing to suitcase nuke Phoenix. Although the risks may be miniscule the consequences utterly disastourous.
On the face of it, I don't like the ideal of a UAE government owned company purchasing the british company that manages our ports. However I'm not in a position to say its a bad ideal because I don't know enough facts to make an educated decision. I suspect anyone who has already formed a conclusion hasn't thought through throughly.
Stu
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