SP: Build 45 more nuclear plants.

• SP's energy policies demonstrate - 4 important principles....sm
  • Sarah is not a hypocrite....and if you understood... - sam
  • McPalin new FL stump promise: Will SHARE THE WEALTH of - OS drilling revenues with Tallahassee....sm
  • SP cult strangely silent - on this one. Why is that? nm
    • Probably silent on this because it was an idiotic, rabid dem post - nm
      • Or, you can't explain away the words - straight from the moose's mouth maybe?
        • I got the socialism thing right from the O's mouth.... - sam
  • SP: Build 45 more nuclear plants. - McC's nuclear safety policy: "Blah, blah, bl
    • For full impact: McC's nuclear safety policy: - "Blah, blah, blah, blah"...sm
  • Bravo to you, this needed to said on here because she - me
    • Oh, right! You guys are the hypocrites if you claim - to care about the country, but elect O. nm

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Doesn't this just give you a warm fuzzy?

Dubai's $1.2 Bln Bid for U.S. Weapons Maker Delayed (Update2)

March 20 (Bloomberg) -- Dubai, which agreed this month to sell its interest in U.S. ports, said its $1.2 billion takeover of a U.K. company with U.S. plants that make military equipment is delayed while the authorities investigate security concerns.

Dubai International Capital LLC, which is owned by the government of the Persian Gulf emirate, and Doncasters Group Ltd. agreed to delay the transaction by as many as two months from March 31 while government agencies review the purchase, Sameer Al Ansari, Dubai International's chief executive, said in an interview today.

``After what happened with Dubai Ports, the government is looking at this deal more closely,'' Al Ansari said after a press conference in Dubai announcing an agreement with HSBC Holdings Plc.

Dubai's bid may ignite a similar political furor in the U.S. to that the emirate's purchase of London-based Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. caused last month when DP World had to agree to sell interests in six U.S. terminals. Revenue from Doncasters' nine U.S. plants, which make parts for tanks and military aircraft, account for about 40 percent of total sales.

The derailing of the ports plan was a setback for President George W. Bush, who was rebuffed by fellow Republicans and stung by polls that showed strong public opposition to the sale. Dubai is one of seven sheikdoms making up the United Arab Emirates, from where two of the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks came.

The Committee on Foreign Investment, a federal body which considers the sale of U.S. assets to foreign companies, started a more detailed 45-day investigation into the Doncasters agreement at the end of February, said Al Ansari.

Al Ansari declined to comment on whether the transaction will go through.

Dubai Investments

Dubai International last year spent $1 billion for a stake in DaimlerChrysler AG and 800 million pounds ($1.4 billion) for Tussauds Group, owner of London's Madame Tussauds waxworks museum.

Doncasters, which is based in Melbourne, England, has plants in Rincon, Georgia; Groton, Connecticut, and other U.S. sites. Its customers include Boeing Co. and General Electric Co., according to information on its Web site.

Gulf Arab governments, flush with record oil revenue, are spending billions of dollars on companies from South Korea to the U.S.

Kuwait's state-controlled PWC Logistics, which won a U.S. military contract last year worth as much as $14 billion to feed troops in Iraq, agreed in July to buy Santa Ana, California-based GeoLogistics Corp. for $454 million. GeoLogistics is an international freight management company with operations in more than 100 countries, according to its Web site.

To contact the reporter on this story:

James Cordahi in Dubai at  cherifcord@bloomberg.net

Looks like the foxes are now in charge of the henhouses.

http://www.nysun.com/article/29714

March 23, 2006 Edition > Section: National > Printer-Friendly Version

America Hires Chinese Firm To Inspect Cargo For Nuclear Material

BY TED BRIDIS - Associated Press
March 23, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/29714

WASHINGTON (AP) - In the aftermath of the Dubai ports dispute, the Bush administration is hiring a Hong Kong conglomerate to help detect nuclear materials inside cargo passing through the Bahamas to the United States and elsewhere.

The administration acknowledges the no-bid contract with Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. represents the first time a foreign company will be involved in running a sophisticated U.S. radiation detector at an overseas port without American customs agents present.

Freeport in the Bahamas is 65 miles from the U.S. coast, where cargo would be likely to be inspected again. The contract is currently being finalized.

The administration is negotiating a second no-bid contract for a Philippine company to install radiation detectors in its home country, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. At dozens of other overseas ports, foreign governments are primarily responsible for scanning cargo.

While President Bush recently reassured Congress that foreigners would not manage security at U.S. ports, the Hutchison deal in the Bahamas illustrates how the administration is relying on foreign companies at overseas ports to safeguard cargo headed to the United States.

Hutchison Whampoa is the world's largest ports operator and among the industry's most-respected companies. It was an early adopter of U.S. anti-terror measures. But its billionaire chairman, Li Ka-Shing, also has substantial business ties to China's government that have raised U.S. concerns over the years.

Li Ka-Shing is pretty close to a lot of senior leaders of the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party, said Larry M. Wortzel, head of a U.S. government commission that studies China security and economic issues. But Wortzel said Hutchison operates independently from Beijing, and he described Li as a very legitimate international businessman.

One can conceive legitimate security concerns and would hope either the Homeland Security Department or the intelligence services of the United States work very hard to satisfy those concerns, Wortzel said.

Three years ago, the Bush administration effectively blocked a Hutchison subsidiary from buying part of a bankrupt U.S. telecommunications company, Global Crossing Ltd., on national security grounds.

And a U.S. military intelligence report, once marked secret, cited Hutchison in 1999 as a potential risk for smuggling arms and other prohibited materials into the United States from the Bahamas.

Hutchison's port operations in the Bahamas and Panama could provide a conduit for illegal shipments of technology or prohibited items from the West to the PRC (People's Republic of China), or facilitate the movement of arms and other prohibited items into the Americas, the now-declassified assessment said.

The CIA currently has no security concerns about Hutchison's port operations, and the administration believes the pending deal with the foreign company would be safe, officials said.

Supervised by Bahamian customs officials, Hutchison employees will drive the towering, truck-like radiation scanner that moves slowly over large cargo containers and scans them for radiation that might be emitted by plutonium or a radiological weapon.

Any positive reading would set off alarms monitored simultaneously by Bahamian customs inspectors at Freeport and by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials working at an anti-terrorism center 800 miles away in northern Virginia. Any alarm would prompt a closer inspection of the cargo, and there are multiple layers of security to prevent tampering, officials said.

The equipment operates itself, said Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, the agency negotiating the contract. It's not going to be someone standing at the controls pressing buttons and flipping switches.

A lawmaker who helped lead the opposition to the Dubai ports deal isn't so confident. Neither are some security experts. They question whether the U.S. should pay a foreign company with ties to China to keep radioactive material out of the United States.

Giving a no-bid contract to a foreign company to carry out the most sensitive security screening for radioactive materials at ports abroad raises many questions, said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

A low-paid employee with access to the screening equipment could frustrate international security by studying how the equipment works and which materials set off its alarms, warned a retired U.S. Customs investigator who specialized in smuggling cases.

Money buys a lot of things, Robert Sheridan said. The fact that foreign workers would have access to how the United States screens various containers for nuclear material and how this technology scrutinizes the containers _ all those things allow someone with a nefarious intention to thwart the screening.

Other experts discounted concerns. They cited Hutchison's reputation as a leading ports company and said the United States inevitably must rely for some security on large commercial operators in the global maritime industry.

We must not allow an unwarranted fear of foreign ownership or involvement in offshore operations to impair our ability to protect against nuclear weapons being smuggled into this country, said Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., a member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. We must work with these foreign companies.

A former Coast Guard commander, Stephen Flynn, said foreign companies sometimes prove more trustworthy _ and susceptible to U.S. influence _ than governments.

It's a very fragile system, Flynn said. Foreign companies recognize the U.S. has the capacity and willingness to exercise a kill switch if something goes wrong.

A spokesman for Hutchison's ports subsidiary, Anthony Tam, said the company is a strong supporter in port security initiatives.

In the case of the Bahamas, our local personnel are working alongside with U.S. customs officials to identify and inspect U.S.-bound containers that could be carrying radioactive materials, Tam said.

However, there are no U.S. customs agents checking any cargo containers at the Hutchison port in Freeport. Under the contract, no U.S. officials would be stationed permanently in the Bahamas with the radiation scanner.

The administration is finalizing the contract amid a national debate over maritime security sparked by the furor over now-abandoned plans by Dubai-owned DP World to take over significant operations at major U.S. ports.

Hutchison operates the sprawling Freeport Container Port on Grand Bahama Island. Its subsidiary, Hutchison Port Holdings, has operations in more than 20 countries but none in the United States.

Contract documents, obtained by The Associated Press, indicate Hutchison will be paid roughly $6 million. The contract is for one year with options for three years.

The Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration is negotiating the Bahamas contract under a $121 million security program it calls the second line of defense. Wilkes, the NNSA spokesman, said the Bahamian government dictated that the U.S. give the contract to Hutchison.

It's their country, their port. The driver of the mobile carrier is the contractor selected by their government. We had no say or no choice, he said. We are fortunate to have allies who are signing these agreements with us.

Some security experts said that is a weak explanation in the Bahamas, with its close reliance on the United States. The administration could insist that the Bahamas permit U.S. Customs agents to operate at the port, said Albert Santoli, an expert on national security issues in Asia and the Pacific.

Why would they not accept that? said Santoli, a former national security aide to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif. There is an interest in the Bahamas and every other country in the region to make sure the U.S. stays safe and strong. That's how this should be negotiated.

Flynn, the former Coast Guard commander, agreed the Bahamas would readily accept such a proposal but said the U.S. is short of trained customs agents to send overseas.

Contract documents obtained by the AP show at least one other foreign company is involved in the U.S. radiation-detection program.

A separate, no-bid $4 million contract the Bush administration is negotiating would pay a Manila-based company, International Container Terminal Services Inc., to install radiation detectors at the Philippines' largest port.

The U.S. says the Manila company is not being paid to operate the radiation monitors once they are installed. But two International Container executives and a senior official at the government's Philippine Nuclear Research Institute said the company will run the detectors on behalf of the institute and the country's customs bureau. U.S. officials said they will investigate further how the Filipinos plan to use the equipment.

March 23, 2006 Edition > Section: National > Printer-Friendly Version

Didn't you know that? They have been here for years. Do you hear them begging for a bailout? Nope. Because they build decent cars.

The 3 big ones didn't bother to take heed during the last gas crunch and didn't learn a dang thing. If they did, we would have good cars now. GM built a good motor; the V6 3 liter engine. Our Old's Delta 98 (big luxury car)  V6 got 30 MPH. Our Buick LeSabre gets 28 MPH. Why didn't they put those engines in all their cars?

Because the AMERICAN PEOPLE wanted big, bad SUVs and V8 engines. So...if you want to sell cars, you build what people want.

Just like political arena, as soon as something goes wrong in America, they blame the president. As soon as high gas prices hit, they blamed the car companies and turn their backs on them and now they're in a mess. BUT, it doesn't mean they shouldn't have been working on alternate energy cars. Prius, made by Toyota, has been out for a few years now; 48 MPH.  Can't buy one now because that's what everybody wants. Yet when they first came out, hardly any takers.

So, it's not all the fault of the president or car companies. Think about it.

Here we go again.  :-(

U.N. Inspectors Dispute Iran Report By House Panel
Paper on Nuclear Aims Called Dishonest

By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 14, 2006; A17

U.N. inspectors investigating Iran's nuclear program angrily complained to the Bush administration and to a Republican congressman yesterday about a recent House committee report on Iran's capabilities, calling parts of the document outrageous and dishonest and offering evidence to refute its central claims.

Officials of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency said in a letter that the report contained some erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated statements. The letter, signed by a senior director at the agency, was addressed to Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, which issued the report. A copy was hand-delivered to Gregory L. Schulte, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA in Vienna.

The IAEA openly clashed with the Bush administration on pre-war assessments of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Relations all but collapsed when the agency revealed that the White House had based some allegations about an Iraqi nuclear program on forged documents.

After no such weapons were found in Iraq, the IAEA came under additional criticism for taking a cautious approach on Iran, which the White House says is trying to build nuclear weapons in secret. At one point, the administration orchestrated a campaign to remove the IAEA's director general, Mohamed ElBaradei. It failed, and he won the Nobel Peace Prize last year.

Yesterday's letter, a copy of which was provided to The Washington Post, was the first time the IAEA has publicly disputed U.S. allegations about its Iran investigation. The agency noted five major errors in the committee's 29-page report, which said Iran's nuclear capabilities are more advanced than either the IAEA or U.S. intelligence has shown.

Among the committee's assertions is that Iran is producing weapons-grade uranium at its facility in the town of Natanz. The IAEA called that incorrect, noting that weapons-grade uranium is enriched to a level of 90 percent or more. Iran has enriched uranium to 3.5 percent under IAEA monitoring.

When the congressional report was released last month, Hoekstra said his intent was to help increase the American public's understanding of Iran as a threat. Spokesman Jamal Ware said yesterday that Hoekstra will respond to the IAEA letter.

Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.), a committee member, said the report was clearly not prepared in a manner that we can rely on. He agreed to send it to the full committee for review, but the Republicans decided to make it public before then, he said in an interview.

The report was never voted on or discussed by the full committee. Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the vice chairman, told Democratic colleagues in a private e-mail that the report took a number of analytical shortcuts that present the Iran threat as more dire -- and the Intelligence Community's assessments as more certain -- than they are.

Privately, several intelligence officials said the committee report included at least a dozen claims that were either demonstrably wrong or impossible to substantiate. Hoekstra's office said the report was reviewed by the office of John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence.

Negroponte's spokesman, John Callahan, said in a statement that his office reviewed the report and provided its response to the committee on July 24, '06. He did not say whether it had approved or challenged any of the claims about Iran's capabilities.

This is like prewar Iraq all over again, said David Albright, a former nuclear inspector who is president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. You have an Iranian nuclear threat that is spun up, using bad information that's cherry-picked and a report that trashes the inspectors.

The committee report, written by a single Republican staffer with a hard-line position on Iran, chastised the CIA and other agencies for not providing evidence to back assertions that Iran is building nuclear weapons.

It concluded that the lack of intelligence made it impossible to support talks with Tehran. Democrats on the committee saw it as an attempt from within conservative Republican circles to undermine Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has agreed to talk with the Iranians under certain conditions.

The report's author, Fredrick Fleitz, is a onetime CIA officer and special assistant to John R. Bolton, the administration's former point man on Iran at the State Department. Bolton, who is now ambassador to the United Nations, had been highly influential during President Bush's first term in drawing up a tough policy that rejected talks with Tehran.

Among the allegations in Fleitz's Iran report is that ElBaradei removed a senior inspector from the Iran investigation because he raised concerns about Iranian deception regarding its nuclear program. The agency said the inspector has not been removed.

A suggestion that ElBaradei had an unstated policy that prevented inspectors from telling the truth about Iran's program was particularly outrageous and dishonest, according to the IAEA letter, which was signed by Vilmos Cserveny, the IAEA's director for external affairs and a former Hungarian ambassador.

Hoekstra's committee is working on a separate report about North Korea that is also being written principally by Fleitz. A draft of the report, provided to The Post, includes several assertions about North Korea's weapons program that the intelligence officials said they cannot substantiate, including one that Pyongyang is already enriching uranium.

The intelligence community believes North Korea is trying to acquire an enrichment capability but has no proof that an enrichment facility has been built, the officials said.

They have stated repeatedly it is for energy. 

I have a real difficult time knowing who to believe.  Bush has paid the media to present his point of view.  This tactic used to be called propaganda when it referred to Communists.  Communists were supposed to be the ones who wanted to take over the entire world and force their form of government on everyone.

Today it's America doing the very same thing.

It's not difficult to find an ever growing list of Bush lies.

If you can provide me with a similar list of lies told by Ahmadinejad, I'd love to read it. 

The issue here is credibility and who has the biggest history of lying.  Unfortunately, a pack of lies is what got us where we are in Iraq today.  To me, it looks like Bush is trying the very same tactics to get us into a war with Iran. 

Although Ahmadinejad is a terrible, psychotic, murderous, dangerous individual, Bush is the person who has the five-year history of lying to the American people and to the world.

Quite frankly, if I were the president of Iran and saw my neighbor, Iraq, invaded based on a pack of lies, I believe I'd want to flex my muscles and try to scare the USA into backing off and not attacking my citizens as they did in Iraq. 

Israel has nuclear weapons (that I believe WE paid for).  The USA has nuclear weapons.  Why is that okay?

The real threat is Korea, but Bush is too much of a coward and doesn't have the courage to address that threat.

The propaganda machine of George W. Bush has cast Syria in a very negative light, yet Syria was responsible for saving American lives the other day by thwarting a terror attempt.

That, in and of itself, in addition to Bush's refusal to get the Taliban that were in plain view the other day, has me questioning every single word that comes out of this lying president's mouth.

Yes, I'll say it again.  He is a liar.  A LIAR!  Maybe in your neck of the woods, lying is an accepted form of communication.  Where I come from, it does nothing but destroy credibility and create distrust in the person who is doing the lying.  You can respond with all the snappy **you hate bush** and **you're on the side of the terrorists** comebacks you want (seems to be the usual conservative talking point response), but the bottom line is he is a chronic liar.  I don't hate Bush, but I sure as heck don't like (or trust) liars. 

Avraham Hirschson, the Israeli tourism minister, said: I'm not a theologian, I'm the minister of tourism, and I'm not interested in the politics of our tourists as long as they come here. They come here as tourists, and they're friends of Israel.