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Like international commercial air travel, port operations do not start at home -- they begin abroad, and strong, trusted allies are essential to ensure the safety of cargo being loaded onto U.S.-bound ships in port terminals all over the world before it heads for an American port. Lost in all the noise is the fact that Dubai was the first Middle-Eastern entity to sign-up for the Container Security Initiative to pre-screen cargo destined for the United States.

Bush administration officials, stunned by the press and political firestorm, are now belatedly trying to make these points with their "friends" in Congress -- but it is truly a case of too little water, too late on the flames. During hastily called Senate Armed Services Committee hearings, members were too busy tallying up the flood of constituent calls and e-mails to even acknowledge that funding for port security has increased dramatically since the attacks of Sept. 11 -- from $259 million in 2001 to $1.6 billion in 2005.

The administration's message was further diluted late in the week by two painful admissions: First, that both the president and Treasury Secretary John Snow -- who chairs CFIUS -- had learned about the controversial transaction from the press; and second, that as the controversy unfolded in the midst of guilty pleas and indictments in "Lobby-gate" -- paid lobbyists were dispatched to Capitol Hill to defend the DP World-port decision.

The Bush White House may yet salvage the DP-World-U.S. Port operating deal. With a sufficient investment of the president's "political capital," a company owned by a valued ally in the war on terror might yet be able to conduct limited and regulated business operations at a few U.S. ports.

Of equal importance is the hope that this most recent drama is a wake-up call to the Bush administration that they simply must do a better job of communicating clearly with the public and the Congress. If they fail to do so, they will feed a growing perception that this is a White House adrift at sea.

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.

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