The information at issue here is the contents of containers, shippers and consignees. I am not sure what benefit this would be for the UAE, especially when they would have access to this information anyway as long as they operated the terminals on the other end in the foreign ports. The benefit to the US was getting information on cargo shipments and relevant parties going between two foreign ports.

“I guess it’s OK for Gazprom to buy up all our natural gas infrastructure, then?”
– Sure why not. What are they going to do with it inside the US? the company would need to operate under US rules. Not only that, it would be operated by Americans. As for depending on Gazprom-controlled NG infrastructure outside the US, that’s another story.
– How about letting Venezuela own gasoline refineries in the US? Oh wait, they already do. Not only that, but the owner/Government actively threatens to cut off supply.

There was no risk in letting Dubai Ports World operate cargo terminals in the US. NONE. They do not control the cargo arriving at the terminal from shore or from sea. They only facilitate the movement of cargo from one mode of transport to another. They do not release incoming cargo. First Customs releasing it to the control of the shipping company who releases the cargo to truckers or whatever for onward carriage to the final customer. All of this done by American employees who would not become threats simply because the ultimate owner is a foreign entity.

While this incident might have brought additional scrutiny to other deals, the killing of this deal was still completely unjustified. In the process a good source of intelligence was sacrificed.

The fracas paid dividends elsewhere, too. A lot of deals got a lot more scrutiny after all the uproar. To me, that’s a win.

I concur with FOD about the substance of this matter.

(And, you know, just as a fun aside, anybody who uses the Hindustan Times/or public statements from Indian officials regarding Indian vulnerability does so at their own peril, too!)

Not for anything, but I did not suggest this. My point is that this deal was killed off due to irrational hysteria. I doubt any politician was initially interested in interfering with this business activity until their uninformed constituents started complaining to them about the deal. At that point, this turned into a political hot potato which the 30+ congressional bills submitted demonstrate.

Where is the conspiracy? Democrats openly fought President Bush’s plans. This had nothing to do with port security. As I note, there are bigger threats in the industry that don’t bring anywhere near the amount of attention that this issue did.

This is a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory that’s bubbled around your more whacky rightwing blogs for about two years. It’s based on Rowan Scarborough’s book Sabotage: America’s Enemies within the CIA.

The book’s thesis is the CIA was actively working to undermine the goals and agenda of the Bush administration. The DPW deal was supposedly one example, of many, of the “rogue” CIA undermining Bush policies to the supposed detriment of the nation. According to Scarborough, the new CIA head–Porter Goss–had great ideas which the large liberal cabal within the CIA sought to defeat. Goss was further hampered by John Negroponte who wanted to usurp the CIA for his own intelligence czar agenda.

I weep for the reputation of the USNI..