First Bush Veto

Bush to veto efforts to stop UAE port deal

by kos

Tue Feb 21, 2006 at 01:57:44 PM PDT

Bush has never used a veto. Never.

But he finally found something worth expending some of that
almost-expended "political capital" on -- protecting the right of the
UAE to take over port security.

President George W. Bush said on Tuesday that a deal for a state-owned
Dubai company to manage major U.S. ports should go forward and will not
jeopardize U.S. security.

Bush told reporters traveling back to Washington with him from Colorado
that he would veto legislation to stop the deal from going through.

"After careful review by our government, I believe the transaction
ought to go forward," Bush said. He added that if the U.S. Congress
passed a law to stop the deal, "I'll deal with it with a veto."

"Careful review". The White House has also claimed that there was a rigorous national security review of the deal.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, my understanding, Les, is that this went through
the national security review process under CFIUS, at the Department of
Treasury. That is the agency that is responsible for overseeing such
matters. And this includes a number of national security agencies --
the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense,
the Justice, among others, and there is a rigorous review that goes on
for proposed foreign investments for national security concerns. And in
terms of specifics relating to this, Treasury is the chair of this and
you should direct those questions to Treasury.

Yet Rumsfeld has just admitted that he had no clue what this deal was about and that he wasn't consulted.

QUESTION: Are you confident that any problems with security -- from
what you know, are you confident that any problems with security would
not be greater with a UAE company running this than an American company?

RUMSFELD: I am reluctant to make judgments based on the minimal amount
of information I have because I just heard about this over the weekend.

This weekend? The deal was approved Feb. 13.

So who exactly approved this deal? It wasn't the people McClellan
claimed it was. And why is Bush so hell-bent on seeing it happen, to
the point of threatening his first-ever veto?