Congress Prepares for
Port Showdown
Lawmakers Take First
Steps Toward Ending Bush Deal
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
The shot of the gritty
Baltimore waterfront pulls back to
reveal a youthful, serious Senate
candidate intoning: "President Bush
wants to sell this port -- and five
others -- to the United Arab Emirates, a
country that had diplomatic ties with
the Taliban, the home of two 9/11
hijackers, whose banks wired money to
the terrorists."
"I'm running for the
Senate," Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.)
had been saying all week on televisions
throughout his home state, "because we
shouldn't outsource our national
security to anyone."
The message may be
simple, but it mirrors the views of the
vast majority of Americans whose
visceral sentiments on the port issue
are driving Congress toward a
confrontation with the White House. For
Republicans -- even those reluctant to
cross the president -- the only viable
response to Ford's conclusion is "I
agree," said Carl Forti, spokesman for
the National Republican Congressional
Committee.
"Every day, we get
hundreds and hundreds of phone calls,
e-mails, letters objecting to this,"
House Republican Conference Chairman
Deborah Pryce (Ohio) said yesterday on
CNBC. "And you just can't buck that when
there's that much public [sentiment] and
objection to it. Whether it's right or
wrong, this is sort of a lose-lose now."
Lawmakers took their
first formal steps yesterday toward
killing Dubai Ports World's acquisition
of management operations at six major
U.S. ports when the House Appropriations
Committee added a measure to a must-pass
war-funding bill that would block the
deal. The vote was 62 to 2, with only
Reps. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) and James P.
Moran Jr. (D-Va.) opposing it. A full
House vote on the bill is expected to
pass overwhelmingly next week.
The Senate saw its first
skirmish on the issue when Sen. Charles
E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) moved to amend a
lobbying reform bill with a measure that
would also scuttle the acquisition. That
brought Senate progress on the lobbying
bill to a halt, as Senate Majority
Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) objected to
what he described as a blatant violation
of Senate rules on the Democrats' part.
Frist vowed to use parliamentary tactics
to block a vote on Schumer's proposal,
but Democrats made it clear they would
not let the matter go away.
The confrontation over
Dubai Ports World's acquisition of
management operations at six major
ports, more than any other issue in
recent years, has been driven by
constituents anxious about terrorism,
the war in Iraq, and illegal immigration
and foreign encroachment, lawmakers say.
"The broader issue at
work here is the public's continuing
concerns over 9/11, Iraq and all things
Middle Eastern as a result," said Rep.
Michael N. Castle (R-Del.). "As this
played out across the country, I don't
think there was a whole lot of
distinction going on between the UAE and
any other country."
Add to that the
president's rock-bottom approval ratings
and there may have been little the White
House could do to beat back the issue.
"I've literally had
senior citizens, little old ladies,
calling my office crying about their
concern," Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
(D-Fla.) told administration officials
recently.
White House officials did
not back down in the face of a brewing
revolt. Spokesman Scott McClellan
stressed that conversations between the
administration, Dubai Ports World and
Congress continue. But he made clear
that "the president's position is
unchanged."
Republican lawmakers said
yesterday that obstinacy has only fueled
the rebellion. And GOP members of all
ranks objected to the White House's
handling of an issue that has proved to
be a gift for Democrats.
"The administration made
this plan and then popped it at all of
us," Pryce said.
"This is probably the
worst administration ever in getting
Congress's opinion on anything," said
Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.). "The
difference [now] is, instead of a 60
percent favorability rating, he's got 40
percent favorability, and a 40 percent
that's not getting any better."
For Democrats, the issue
may prove to be a political windfall,
even if Republicans side with them in a
confrontation with the White House.
About 70 percent of Americans oppose the
port deal, and that opposition does not
change if they are told port managers do
not control security at the ports.
Democracy Corps, a Democratic polling
organization, released a memo yesterday
saying the Dubai port issue has helped
drive down Bush's approval ratings,
particularly on national security
matters and especially among Republican
voters. And Bush's decline appears to be
pulling the Republican Congress's
approval ratings with it.
Brian Nick, spokesman for
the National Republican Senatorial
Committee, said yesterday that the port
issue -- and its exploitation by
Democrats such as Ford -- fit "into a
national discussion about which party is
better equipped to win the war on
terrorism, and Republicans win that
issue every time."
But political anxieties
on the issue are clearly high.
"There's nothing more
pitiful than a flock of politicians in
full flight," joked Rep. David R. Obey
(Wis.), the ranking Democrat on the
Appropriations Committee.
Some Republicans put the
blame squarely at the White House's
feet. If the administration had
conducted a 45-day national security
investigation of the deal, and briefed
Congress on the findings, lawmakers may
not have been so quick to publicly
oppose the deal when it became public,
said Kolbe, who called port security
concerns over Dubai Ports World's
acquisition "bogus."
Sen. Trent
Lott (R-Miss.) said the president's
dramatic veto threat -- delivered to
reporters summoned to the front of Air
Force One -- only inflamed sentiments,
especially after he intimated that some
opposition to the deal stemmed from
prejudice toward Arabs. By elevating the
issue to a confrontation between
Congress and the president, Bush only
ensured the issue would be front-page
news until its resolution, Senate
leadership aides said
