Warning siren went unheeded on port deal
By MARTIN SCHRAM, Scripps Howard News Service
We are focusing today on one sentence in a two-page U.S. document officially known as number AFGP-2002-603856. It is a 2002 letter in which al Qaeda says that it has infiltrated United Arab Emirates security and other agencies.
It was a warning siren document that should have raised urgent concerns at the highest level of the U.S. government. President Bush and his entire team initially dozed through the alarm and apparently expected we all would, too. They rushed to approve a bid by Dubai Ports World (a United Arab Emirates company) to buy a British firm that runs six major U.S. ports without publicly addressing the obvious questions the document raises.
The document, a letter from the al Qaeda terrorist organization to the United Arab Emirates government, mainly warns UAE officials to stop arresting al Qaeda's "Mujahideen sympathizers." The second paragraph begins with a potentially chilling boast: "You are well aware that we have infiltrated your security, censorship, and monetary agencies along with other agencies that should not be mentioned."
This document was not exactly a tip top government secret. U.S. officials could find and read it (in its original Arabic or English translation) in the files of various government counter-terrorism agencies. But you can find and read it too. Just check out the Web site of the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and peruse the list of unclassified documents. It is the one that says at the top, "In the Name of Allah the Most Compassionate and Merciful," followed by a warning title, "Get the Idolaters out of Arab Island (Gulf Countries)."
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