Dubai firm’s bid to run US military irks Congressmen
By David Lightman
WASHINGTON: Lawmakers already outraged over a pending sale of port operations to a Dubai-owned firm erupted with fresh fury on Thursday over the news that another company in the United Arab Emirates is poised to run plants in Connecticut and other states that make sensitive military equipment.
“Emotions are raw,” said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., of the latest news. “I want to know what this company and what the government are doing.”
News about the $1.2 billion sale of London-based Doncasters Group Ltd. to Dubai International Capital came as Congress was still figuring out ways to reform how the US government reviews bids by foreign-based firms to run companies with security concerns.
“I’m fed up with the outsourcing of our industry, the outsourcing of port management — I’m fed up with all of this outsourcing,” said Rep. Rob Simmons, R-Conn., after hearing one of the Capitol Hill briefings on Thursday by Cabinet officials scrambling to calm already-jittery members of Congress.
Dodd, Simmons and others tried to get answers on Thursday — answers about the process, the company and the government’s investigation into the sale — and they came away largely unsatisfied. “I have significant concerns regarding the range of the national security considerations that are covered” by the government’s reviews of such takeovers, said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala. Members of two congressional committees — Banking in the Senate, and Armed Services in the House — grilled administration witnesses about the Dubai deals for much of the day.
Lawmakers were already concerned about the plan by Dubai Ports World to take over operations at six major ports — New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia. Suddenly, they had to add a new worry to the list: the plan by Dubai International Capital to acquire Doncasters, which has three plants in Connecticut. Its products are routinely used in military aircraft and tanks.
Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt tried to calm Congress on Thursday by explaining that the government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States was in the midst of a 45-day investigation into whether the purchase would compromise national security.
The swift action contrasts sharply with how the committee handled the port deal, which it approved in January after a 30-day review. —Dawn/The Washington Post News Service
