Senator criticizes sale of six ports

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden said Wednesday night that he is fighting a proposal to sell East Coast port terminals to a United Arab Emirates company.

During a town hall-style meeting in downtown Corvallis, the Oregon Democrat called the plan, which was vetted by at least a dozen federal agencies, “pretty astounding news even by Beltway standards.”

He is among a groundswell of Senators, both Democrat and Republican, who say handing the nation’s ports over to foreign control would compromise national security. On Wednesday, Wyden and U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., sent a letter to President Bush demanding that the administration block Dubai Ports World from acquiring a controlling interest in several companies currently operating U.S. ports.

In his letter, Wyden pointed out that two of the Sept. 11 hijackers came the United Arab Emirates, which owns Dubai Ports World. The country’s banking system, he said, was used to finance the 2001 attacks.

The letter further demanded that the administration make public all documents involved in approving the sale.

“There are certainly a lot of questions that need answering,” Wyden said Wednesday.

During a forum that touched on Oregon issues but largely centered on international affairs, Wyden took a measured approach in a town where, this week, the City Council approved a resolution calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

While stressing that he opposed the 2003 U.S. invasion, partly because he wasn’t convinced international inspectors had had a chance to assess Iraq’s weapons stockpiles, Wyden said it was important to ensure a stable Iraq by training Iraqis to defend themselves and invigorating the country’s economy.

As the Senator described the Iraqi insurgency’s popular support, a man cut in, saying, “They need jobs!”

“Sir,” Wyden countered. “To get jobs, you’ve got to have some semblance of a legal system.”

Regarding the Corvallis City Council’s anti-war resolution, Wyden said he had not yet read it. And, asked if a small, local government could make any difference in foreign affairs, he said, “When city councils are listening to folks … I think that’s to the good.”

Throughout the evening, Wyden discussed the difficult task of balancing national security issues with civil liberties and the necessity of giving the nation’s executive branch flexibility in fighting terrorism, while demanding accountability.

To drive the point home, he quoted Ronald Reagan: “Trust but verify.” And he assured his audience of roughly 60 that “It is possible to fight terrorists ferociously without throwing our civil liberties in the trash can.”

Indeed, he criticized the Bush administration for classifying documents, not for national security reasons but political motive. As Congress sits down to discuss the National Security Agency’s domestic spying programs, Wyden said, lawmakers are unsure of how the programs even work and face the risk of “legislating in the dark.”

“Congress is now about to talk about reforming a program it knows nothing about,” he said.