Now, There's an Idea!

It now appears that Dubai Ports World has no problem with delaying its deal to take over P&O's ports operations. According to today's Washington Post:

The Bush administration said yesterday that it has accepted a proposal from a Dubai maritime company to conduct a 45-day review of the national security implications of the company's plans to take control of significant operations at six U.S. ports.

I'm glad DP World was willing to step up to encourage the administration to follow the law that it was in the process of waiving. What's a 45-day investigation among friends?

Especially given that there are a couple of new developments on the issue. Remember all the talk about the six US ports DP World would be taking over? Kevin Drum noticed a UPI story that pointed out P&O operates 21 ports throughout the country. Oh well. What's an extra 15 ports between friends? That's only a 250% increase.

It's also important to remember, as the administration keeps pointing out, that DP World is not in charge of security at the ports, just operations. They're running them, not protecting them. That task falls to the Coast Guard. When consulted on the DP World deal, the Coast Guard expressed reservations that we're only hearing about now because the administration was rushing to push the deal through until DP World said, "Let's just slow this down for a minute."

Wait--what???

In a Senate hearing earlier today, it was noted that the Coast Guard had raised questions about the deal last year. The full story and implications of that development still aren't completely clear (I linked above to the third Reuters update of that story, so it's still evolving), but we'll keep up with it as well as we can. An AP story cited by Josh Marshall states:

In a statement, the Coast Guard said the concerns reflected in the excerpt ultimately were addressed and that other U.S. intelligence agencies answered the questions raised.

Were they answered satisfactorily, or were they brushed under the carpet? And ow long will it take before we get a straight answer to that question (if we get one at all)?