Congress questions Emirates pact

The group asserted that although the United Arab Emirates may have a strongly pro-US government, some of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers allegedly used the country as a transit point, and that its banking system has been used by several groups allegedly affiliated with Al Qaeda.

''Our ports are major potential terrorist targets," said Senator Christopher Dodd, a Democrat of Connecticut. ''I strongly urge the administration to thoroughly investigate this acquisition."

Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican of Oklahoma, said, ''Handing the keys to US strategic ports to a regime that recognized the Taliban is not a sound next step in our war against terror."

Administration officials defended approval of the deal by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a panel with representatives from 12 US agencies that reviews foreign takeovers of US companies or possible risks to national security.

The company that now operates the ports, they said, is foreign, Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., a British firm. Its employees in US ports, who are mostly Americans, are expected to do the same work they're doing now. Furthermore, Dubai Ports World, which won the bidding this month for the company, has been a reliable partner in screening cargo headed for the United States. And once cargo arrives, federal agents would continue their current level of inspections.

''This company will be subject to any US laws that apply to port security, and will be obliged to have a port security plan that we will review," Stewart Baker, the assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security, said in a phone interview. ''So if there's a falloff in compliance on security here in the United States, we're not completely lacking in ability to respond to that."

The flap has some implications beyond the port security issue, as illustrated by the readiness of administration officials to comment on the decision made by the committee, which deliberates in secret.