"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The homeland security chief said on Sunday a deal for a Dubai-based company to manage major U.S. ports would include security safeguards, but a Republican senator urged a probe and called the Bush administration "tone deaf politically" for approving it.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the Bush administration had approved the sale of British firm P&O, which manages six U.S. ports including New York, to Dubai Ports World after a classified review and the deal would include safeguards to protect U.S. national security.

"You can be assured that before a deal is approved we put safeguards in place, assurances in place, that make everybody comfortable that we are where we need to be from a national security viewpoint," Chertoff said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

But Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said it was a mistake for the administration to approve the sale and called on Congress to investigate it.

"It's unbelievably tone deaf politically at this point in our history, four years after 9/11, to entertain the idea of turning port security over to a company based in the UAE who avows to destroy Israel," Graham said on "Fox News Sunday."

"I don't think now is the time to outsource major port security to a foreign-based company," he said."  ..... continued

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2006-02-19T163451Z_01_N19219437_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-PORTS.xml&rpc=22

Senate

http://senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

House

http://www.house.gov/