GAO Said Profit Motive Was Impeding National Security

The New York Times today points out that government investigators basically reported in September what I have been saying is at the heart of the current UAE port security scandal: the profit motive.

Here is the excerpt:

"In September, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said the Treasury Department, as head of the interagency committee that reviews such deals, had used an overly narrow definition of national security threats because it wanted to encourage foreign investment...The report by the General Accountability Office in September included sharp criticism of the review process carried out by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the committee created in 1975 to review foreign investments that could affect national security. The report said the committee, under the Clinton and Bush administrations, had often construed national security too narrowly, looking only at such factors as the control over technology exports, classified contracts and specific derogatory information about a company."

So there it is - corporate profits are more important to the political establishment than national security.

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