We all know Bush is carrying somebody's water in this Dubai fiasco... for some reason, Bush is "all in" with a bust hand. Carlyle group holdings, perhaps? Who knows?
Regardless, here's a case-in-point to debunk Bush's claim that UAE (Dubai) is a "country that plays by the rules and has got a good track record...."
It's right here, all summed up in this USAToday headline from February, 2004:
BIN LADEN'S OPERATIVES STILL USING FREEWHEELING DUBAI.
Pretty much says it all, doesn't it? Bush wants to hand over our ports to the most notorious Al Qaeda hub in the world.
Some stunning excerpts from the article after the jump...
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Osama bin Laden's operatives still use this freewheeling city as a logistical hub three years after more than half the Sept. 11 hijackers flew directly from Dubai to the United States in the final preparatory stages for the attack.
The recent arrest of an alleged top al-Qaeda combat coach is the latest sign that suspected members of the terrorist organization are among those who take advantage of travel rules that allow easy entry. Citizens of neighboring Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia can come to Dubai without visas, which other nationalities can get at the country's ports of entry.
Once here, it's easy to blend in to what has become a cosmopolitan crowd.
The Emirates is home to an estimated 4 million people, and nearly 75% of them are foreigners. In Dubai, expatriates of all nationalities are catered to, from concerts by top Western musicians to cricket and rugby matches to a German-styled Oktoberfest.
The expatriates, mostly from the Indian subcontinent and the Arab world, are employed in the real estate, insurance, tourism and banking sectors. Westerners, numbering in the tens of thousands, are employed as military advisers and oil specialists.
While the Emirates has taken concrete steps to fight terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001 -- including making high-profile arrests, passing an anti-money laundering law, and imposing close monitoring procedures on charity organizations -- the characteristics that make it an ideal place for legitimate business also attract militants and others with suspect motives.
In August, Pakistani Qari Saifullah Akhtar, suspected of training thousands of al-Qaeda fighters for combat, was arrested in the Emirates and turned over to officials in his homeland, authorities in Pakistan announced.
Emirates authorities have refused to comment on Akhtar's arrest. They were similarly tightlipped in 2002, when the United States announced the arrest of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the suspected mastermind of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 U.S. sailors.
It was a month before Emirates officials confirmed al-Nashiri had been arrested here. Then they said he had been planning to attack "vital economic targets" in the Emirates that were likely to inflict "the highest possible casualties among nationals and foreigners."
The Saudi-born al-Nashiri, one of six Cole defendants in an ongoing trial in Yemen, is in U.S. custody at an undisclosed location. Besides the Cole attack, he is suspected of helping direct the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, U.S. officials say.
With open borders, multiethnic society and freewheeling business rules, the Emirates remains vital to al-Qaeda operations, said Evan F. Kohlmann, a Washington-based terrorism researcher.
Dubai still "plays a key role for al-Qaeda as a through-point and a money transfer location," Kohlmann said, although he also noted the country could be working to combat such activity with "an aggressive but low-profile intelligence strategy."
al-Qaeda isn't the only organization that has found Dubai useful. The father of Pakistan's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has acknowledged heading a clandestine group that, with the help of a Dubai company, supplied Pakistani nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea....
There you have it.
And the Carlyle Group? Go ahead and Reynolds Wrap yourself for this part.
Consider "Leaders in Dubai 2006" as exhibit A. Carlyle Chair Lou Gerstner was a featured speaker there just three months ago, along with Colin Powell, at a pricey meeting billed as "Two days of successful business, One opportunity to network."
What interest does the Carlyle Group have in Dubai?
Not much telling. Both are privately owned. Regardless, it's a good bet that some kind of business proposition is undergirding Bush's hardline stance on Dubai ownership.
The lies are just too big for anything less than money to be at stake.