GOP leaders cool attacks on port deal, but doubts still plentiful

WASHINGTON — A rush by congressional Republican leaders for quick action to block a controversial $6.8 billion port deal slowed down Friday.

The former head of the Sept. 11 commission, meanwhile, said the deal "never should have happened."

The Dubai company's offer to delay taking control of some terminal operations at six U.S. ports, combined with aggressive White House lobbying, tempered the rush.

Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., will meet with House GOP leaders Tuesday to discuss the chamber's next move, while aides to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he will wait to be briefed by the company before taking a stand.

Hastert and Frist had issued strong statements raising concerns about national security after Dubai Ports World's acquisition of the London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation and its terminal operations at six major U.S. ports, including those in New York and Baltimore. Dubai Ports World is based in Dubai, a member of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

A bipartisan group of senators that dismissed the Arab maritime company's offer of a delay as meaningless said Friday that it would try to force a vote early next week on legislation that would require a 45-day national-security investigation of the deal.

Senators from all points of the political spectrum — including Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Norm Coleman, R-Minn., Robert Menendez, D-N.J., Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Jack Reed, D-R.I. — said they will push for a fast vote on legislation that would block the deal while the administration conducts a national-security review of the transaction.

Developments on ports deal

The Bush administration said it wouldn't reconsider its approval of the ports deal.

Thomas Kean, former head of the Sept. 11 commission, said the deal "never should have happened."

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey filed a suit seeking to terminate its lease with the British company that the Dubai enterprise is acquiring. Also, Eller — a business partner with the British company — expanded its legal assault on the deal, filing a petition to block the sale with the High Court in London.

A bipartisan group of senators said it would try to force a vote next week on legislation that would require a 45-day national-security investigation of the deal.

The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times

The legislation would require the secretaries of Homeland Security and the Treasury to brief members of Congress on their findings, and Congress would have the authority to reject the deal.

"A brief period for the company to continue lobbying without the full 45-day investigation that should have been done from the beginning is simply not enough," Schumer said.

Meanwhile, Thomas Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey who led the bipartisan investigation of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, said the ports deal was a big mistake because of past connections between the 2001 hijackers and the UAE. "It shouldn't have happened, it never should have happened," he said.

The quicker the Bush administration can get out of the deal, the better, he added. "There's no question that two of the 9/11 hijackers came from there and money was laundered through there," Kean said.

"I think this deal is going to be killed. The question is how much damage is this going to do to us before it's killed."

The former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit joined in the criticism. Bin Laden is suspected of being the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

"The fact that you are putting a company in place that could already be infiltrated by al-Qaida is a silly thing to do," said Mike Scheuer, who headed the CIA unit until 1999.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the Bush administration welcomes "a slight delay" to allow more time to brief Congress. But, he said, President Bush's threat to veto legislation blocking the takeover stands.

On Friday, the Bush administration sent a team of high-ranking officials from homeland security, the Coast Guard and other agencies to try to reassure lawmakers' staffs that they thoroughly vetted the deal.

National-security adviser Stephen Hadley said Bush thinks that as Congress and the public learn more about the issue, they would "come to the same conclusion he has: that this is something that can go forward and not jeopardize the national security of the United States."

GOP leadership aides said they are not certain lawmakers can avert a showdown between Congress and the White House.

"It would have been a lot easier to frame this deal correctly before this public-relations fiasco," one House leadership aide said. "We're going to give the White House a chance to explain the deal, but it's going to be very hard to put the genie back in the bottle."

Although the transaction has been in the works for months and was approved by a federal interagency committee Jan. 17, the White House said it was caught by surprise this week when a bipartisan group of lawmakers suggested the administration was compromising national security by allowing a state-owned company from the UAE to take charge of some operations at U.S. ports.

The U.S. operations generating the protests represent about 10 percent of the global $6.8 billion acquisition by Dubai Ports World.

Bush fought back, threatening to veto any attempt by Congress to scuttle the deal and portraying the reaction as anti-Arab. Since then, the White House has expressed regret that it did not keep congressional leaders informed of the deal.

Facing a political firestorm, Dubai Ports World said late Thursday that it would not exercise control over or influence the management of terminal operations at the ports in New York, Newark, N.J., Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami and New Orleans "while it engages in further consultations with the Bush administration and as appropriate congressional leadership and relevant port authorities address concerns over future security arrangements."

But the company said it will proceed with the multibillion-dollar acquisition of those port operations, set to be completed Thursday.

For Dubai Ports World, the obstacles kept mounting Friday. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey filed suit in state Superior Court in Newark to stop the deal, charging that any transfer of control of port facilities requires the authority's consent.

A U.S. company at the Port of Miami, Eller, petitioned Britain to block the sale, alleging the deal will force the firm to become an "involuntary partner" with Dubai's government. The company said it might seek millions of dollars in damages.

Material from The Washington Post, The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times is included in this report.