GOP House Panel Votes to Block Ports Deal

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GOP House Panel Votes to Block Ports Deal
By Joel Havemann, Times Staff Writer
5:27 PM PST, March 8, 2006

WASHINGTON — In a stinging rebuke to President Bush, a lopsided and bipartisan majority of a major House committee voted Wednesday to nullify portions of a deal that would hand operation of U.S. port facilities to a Dubai company.

Congress and the White House advanced on a collision course as the House Appropriations Committee approved a measure that Bush has promised to veto — and attached it to a bill the president dearly wants.

The ports measure, sponsored by House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), would ensure that Dubai Ports World, a company partly owned and operated by the government of the United Arab Emirates, would not operate any U.S. port facilities.

"We want to make sure the security of America's ports is in American hands," Lewis said.

The committee, long a bastion of support for the Bush White House, passed the prohibition 62 to 2 as part of a bill that includes $68 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and $19 billion for Hurricane Katrina relief. If the full House and the Senate go along, the strategy could force Bush to choose between the port deal and another year of war funding.

As resistance grew, critics of the port deal gained new ammunition Wednesday from a State Department report critical of human rights practices in the United Arab Emirates, a federation of sheikdoms without a democratically elected government.

As in past annual State Department reports on rights practices around the world, this year's cited violations in United Arab Emirates, including in the emirate of Dubai. The report said that courts applying Islamic law imposed flogging sentences for prostitution, adultery and consensual premarital sex. In one case, a Dubai court sentenced a pregnant Asian housemaid to 150 lashes and deportation for adultery.

In face of solidifying congressional opposition, the White House maintained its support for the turnover of some management authority at the ports to the Dubai company.

"The president's position is unchanged," spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters on Air Force One on the way to New Orleans with Bush.

Lewis' ports provision faced tougher sledding in the Senate, where Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) proposed a similar measure as part of a bill designed to end cozy relationships between lawmakers and lobbyists.

Many Democrats supported Schumer, as did some Republicans from states where the ports are located. But Republican leaders moved Wednesday to quash Schumer's amendment, saying it was out of order and not germane to the ethics bill. Among the powerful Republicans who lined up against Schumer's amendment was Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

"I remain confident that President Bush is committed to protecting the security of our nation, including our ports," Cochran said in a statement.

The controversial transaction is the purchase by Dubai Ports World of a British company, Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which operates some port facilities in six U.S. locations: New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami and New Orleans.

The House Appropriations Committee attached Lewis' provision, which would nullify the transfer of rights to operate the American port facilities to the Dubai company, to the bill to provide the bulk of war funding for 2006. The 2006 funds, along with $50 billion included by Bush in his budget for next year, would lift spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to roughly the level of Korea and about two-thirds of the cost of the Vietnam war.

Steven Kosiak, of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said the $68 billion for this year and the $50 billion for next year would bring the total costs of the overseas component of the war on terrorism to about $320 billion in Iraq and $100 billion in Afghanistan. In comparable dollars, he said, Korea cost $445 billion and Vietnam $635 billion.

Underscoring the importance of the war funding measure, top administration officials Thursday will make their case to the Senate for the war budget. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, along with Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace and Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, will testify before the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Besides funding military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the House version of the war bill devotes money for training Iraqi and Afghan security forces, developing new technologies to counter the roadside bombs that are the biggest killer of U.S. troops in Iraq, and upgrading military vehicles with the latest armor plating.

Key in the debate over the ports deal has been the U.S. relationship with the United Arab Emirates. Opponents of the ports transfer argue that the UAE once backed Afghan's Taliban regime and is a foe of Israel, as well as a country where two Sept. 11 hijackers once were based. Dubai's supporters said it is a dedicated U.S. ally with deep involvement in Western businesses.

"I don't think this is the right thing to do," said Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), one of two House members who voted against the ports measure. "Dubai is a strong ally of the United States in the war on terrorism."

In its yearly human rights report Wednesday, the State Department noted that the UAE record is mixed in its treatment of residents and foreign workers.

Although the constitution calls for freedom of religion, Dubai police last year arrested two American women from the Tom Cox World Ministries, an Arkansas-based Christian group, for passing out Bibles and religious CDs. The two were charged with being "an affront to Islam," and their passports were seized. They were later released and left the country.

The report said that discrimination against non-citizens, who make up 85% of the population, is not legal. Yet, "it was prevalent and occurred in most areas of daily life, including employment, housing, social interaction and healthcare," the report said.

For example, while citizens who contract HIV are given full healthcare at no cost, non-citizens are denied healthcare and are deported.

Eric Olson, acting director for governmental relations at Amnesty International USA, said mistreatment of foreign workers is a "systematic problem" in Dubai. Many domestic employees and other female workers are subjected to sexual violence, and are not afforded legal protections because they are foreigners, Olson said.

The UAE was not classified among the worst human rights offenders on the State Department list. North Korea, Burma, Iran, Zimbabwe, Cuba, China and Belarus were named as the most systematic human rights violators.