Hey Mike, are the commies..er I mean Dems, wrong or right on this one ?

[sarettah]

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsar...RTS.xml&rpc=22

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. Democratic senators said on Friday they would introduce legislation aimed at blocking Dubai Ports World from buying a company that operates several U.S. shipping ports because of security concerns.

Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Hillary Clinton of New York said they would offer a measure to ban companies owned or controlled by foreign governments from acquiring U.S. port operations.

"We wouldn't turn the border patrol or the customs service over to a foreign government, and we can't afford to turn our ports over to one either," Menendez said in a statement. The Senate Banking Committee also plans to hold a hearing on the issue later this month.

P&O, the company Dubai Ports World plans to buy for $6.8 billion, is already foreign-owned, by the British, but the concern is that the purchaser is backed by the United Arab Emirates government.

The UAE company would gain control over the management of major U.S. ports in New York and New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Miami and that has sparked national security concerns among lawmakers.

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The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a U.S. inter-agency panel that reviews security implications of foreign takeovers of strategic assets, already reviewed the transaction and did not object.

Despite that review, some Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Congress urged the Bush administration to conduct a more rigorous review. They expressed fears that the UAE was used as a conduit for parts used for nuclear proliferation and that the local banking system had been abused by financiers with possible links to terrorist organizations.

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U.S. officials have said the UAE has been a solid and cooperative partner in the fight against terrorism, and have praised the UAE for steps to protect its booming financial sector against abuse by terrorism financiers.

Money for the September 11 attacks was wired through the UAE's banking system, according to U.S. officials. Two of the September 11 hijackers were UAE citizens.