Dubai Ports Deal Goes Through After Being Stopped Last Year

[America]

ABU DHABI — A leading Gulf firm in the United Arab Emirates whose plans to operate six U.S. ports was last year rebuffed by Congress, has been certified as a partner in a U.S. port security program.

The state-owned Dubai Ports World has been certified as a partner in the Customs-Trade Partnership against Terrorism. DP World underwent a successful audit that determined the company met international ISO 28000 security standards required by C-TPAT.
In 2007, DP abandoned plans to purchase a British company that operated six major ports in the United States, Middle East Newsline reported. Congress was opposed to a state-owned UAE company having direct access to U.S. ports.

Executives said DP World has become the only international port operator certified by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. They said the certification would ensure improved standards throughout the company's 44 terminals.

"We are proud to be part of the C-TPAT initiative and to have achieved certification for all our terminals," DP World chief executive officer Mohammed Sharaf said.

"It is recognition once again of our commitment to maintaining and managing high levels of security standards, procedures and processes at our terminals, which in turn contributes to international efforts to secure the global supply chain. We regard security as a baseline service for our customers."

DP World has also joined the U.S. Government's Container Security Initiative. The initiative mandated a U.S. Customs presence in 14 DP World terminals that sends containers to the United States.
Executives said the shelving of the acquisition by DP World has not dampened the company's intention to participate in U.S. port security program. They said the company was helping develop and adopt container scanning and tracking technology.

DP World was also participating in the Secure Freight Initiative pilot program. The company was testing containers for nuclear and radioactive material in two of its terminals, Southampton, England and Karachi, Pakistan.

Link:
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2008/me_gulf0246_06_16.asp

[Smurf-Herder]

Good.

Part of the original deal, that wasn't made public at the time, was that DP agreed to CIA at all their existing ports around the world. With this, we have our people at the point of origin, where any WMD might be getting smuggled out of, to come here.

[Moby]

Good.

Part of the original deal, that wasn't made public at the time, was that DP agreed to CIA at all their existing ports around the world. With this, we have our people at the point of origin, where any WMD might be getting smuggled out of, to come here.
That would be interesting. We give Dubai, the home of Halliburton access to our ports and they give CIA full or contained access?

[Smurf-Herder]

That would be interesting. We give Dubai, the home of Halliburton access to our ports and they give CIA full or contained access?

From what I remember reading last year, it was as much access as we need to insure security, involving physical onsite and documentation. The idea was to keep tabs on everything coming out of countries we suspect of being a point of origin of smuggling wmd. This way we can track potential red flagged ships from port to port; as much as possible.

The problem is, a WMD in a ship might not have to make it to the US port and actually dock, to be inspected. But go off in the harbor. So we have to get something like this as close to the source as we can.