(2006-02-22) — President George Bush today defended his administration’s support of a deal to let Dubai Ports World, a state-owned company based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), manage six major U.S. sea ports, saying the arrangement “will give us someone else to blame when terrorists hit one of our ports.”

“Right now, a terror attack through one of those ports would tear this nation apart,” said President Bush. “Some would blame the union longshoremen. Others would fault the major U.S. businesses that move products through the ports. Some might even blame our closest allies, the British, who currently manage the operations. It would pit labor versus management, brother against brother.”

The president said that “outsourcing this to the UAE gives us a scapegoat in the event of a nuculer (sic), chemical or biological attack. We can all get mad at the Arabs. It will unite our nation in the war against terror.”

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove reportedly first suggested the deal, sources said, after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld remarked at a Cabinet meeting that “it’s too bad we don’t have a good reason to start a war with some of these other Arab countries.”

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