Intelligence agencies supported UAE port deal

WASHINGTON — Reviews by U.S. intelligence agencies supported Dubai Ports World's purchase of the British company running some terminals at six U.S. ports, and the assessments were made available to the Treasury Department-run interagency committee that approved the deal, senior Bush administration officials said.

The intelligence studies were coordinated by the Intelligence Community Acquisition Risk Center, a new organization under the office of Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, one official said.

The center normally does broad threat analyses of foreign companies that seek to do business with U.S. intelligence agencies.

Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, on Friday asked the panel's chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., to have a full briefing on intelligence reviews of the ports deal and provide "any classified intelligence community assessments that are pertinent."

Holt's concern is finding out how closely potential terrorism threats were examined, congressional sources said.

While contents of the intelligence assessments remain classified, current and former intelligence officials on Friday spoke highly of the level of counterterrorism cooperation provided after Sept. 11, 2001, by Dubai and several of the other states that make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Dubai Ports World is based in Dubai.

A former senior CIA official recalled that, although money transfers from Dubai were used by the Sept. 11 hijackers, Dubai's security services "were one of the best in the UAE to work with" after the attacks.

He said that once the agency moved against Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan and his black-market sales of nuclear technology, "they helped facilitate the CIA's penetration of Khan's network."

Dubai also assisted in the capture of al-Qaida terrorists. An al-Qaida statement released in Arabic in spring 2002 refers to UAE officials as wanting to "appease the Americans' wishes," including detaining "a number of Mujahideen," according to captured documents made available last week by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

The al-Qaida statement threatened the UAE, saying that "you are an easier target than them; your homeland is exposed to us."

One intelligence official pointed out that when the U.S. Navy no longer made regular use of Yemen after the USS Cole was attacked in 2000, it moved its port calls for supplies and repairs to Dubai.7

Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Tuesday praised the "superb" military-to-military relationship with the UAE.

"In everything that we have asked and work with them on, they have proven to be very, very solid partners," he said.