New ports fiasco: letting Communist China screen for nukes!

If you thought that President Bush's plan to give authority over crucial U.S. ports to Dubai Ports World was bizarre and outrageous, you're going to like his latest port deal even less. After suffering a stinging defeat on the Dubai Ports debacle, and after assuring Congress that foreigners would not manage security at U.S. ports, now comes the revelation that the administration has given a no-bid contract for screening port cargo for nuclear materials to a Hong Kong conglomerate closely aligned with Communist China.

The company in question is Hutchison Whampoa, Ltd., with its subsidiary, Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH), the world's largest ports company. Freeport, the huge Bahamian port just 65 miles from the Florida coast, will be under the contract. HPH will be running sophisticated radiation detection equipment provided by the U.S. government to scan cargo headed to U.S. ports--without U.S. Customs being present.

This should be a major security concern, since Dr. Li Kashing, the billionaire chairman of Hutchison Whampoa, is tightly connected to the People's Republic of China through many personal and business relationships. Veteran intelligence experts and China watchers view Li Ka-shing as the Beijing regime's Armand Hammer and its most important front man in Communist China's strategy to control global shipping and shipping routes. As CNN Anchor Lou Dobbs noted, the administration "is risking national security" through this contract arrangement. "This is absolutely mindless."