[wanderon]

As a trucker who has dealt directly with one of the terminals involved over the last 4 years I would like to offer a few facts:

1) Its not the whole port thats effected in any of the port cities listed. The port of Los Angeles for instance is made up of numerous "terminals". Each of these terminals have "berths" which is dock space for ships (the exact number of berths depends on the size of the terminal ranging from one or two to perhaps as many as 10. They also have storage areas for incoming and outgoing freight - mostly container freight. These terminals are where container or other cargo carrying ships dock and their cargo is off-loaded (by members of the local dock workers union) and set on rail cars or trucks for distribution to their final destination. It is also where export contaners and other cargo are brought to be loaded on to the outgoing ships fro distribution overseas.

The term "Port" really refers to a large industrial complex that services ships of many types and this company will be taking over operations of only a few docks in any of the "ports" around the US and other ports around the world like one small company in a large industrial park might operate a single warehouse in one city and others in other citys while other companies operate the others in that industrail complex.

The concept that this is "taking over the entire port" in ANY city is just wrong. It is in fact like saying that if Sears were sold to a foriegn company that they would be taking over all the malls in the US. These are just individal terminal operations in many ports around the world.

2) This company from UAE will NOT in ANY WAY be responsible for PORT SECURITY. Port Security is handled by the US Coast Guard and the US Customs Agency. This companys business in this country will revolve around berthing container ships that the US Dock Workers Union will off-load import containers under the direction and supervison of US Customs and then reload those ships with export containers. The only security they will be directly responsible for is securing their own area from people trying to steal containers/freight. The security of whats in the containers is handled by US Customs and frankly they are doing a damn good job at it.

3) A full 80% of all the terminal operations in all US ports are in fact leased to foriegn companies and have been for years.

There is no reason what so ever to stop this deal from going through its just politics as usual - misinformation and misdirection and a bunch of politicians off on vacation thinking they can do some hotdogging for thier contituents.

We need MORE Arab allies not LESS...where do you think our credibility in the Arab world will be when we tell them wel yes it was OK for the Brits and Chinese and Japanese to operate here but its certainly not for YOU PEOPLE...