Dubai Company Gives Up On Ports Deal

(CBS/AP)  Bowing to ferocious opposition in Congress, a Dubai-owned company signaled surrender Thursday in its quest to take over operations at U.S. ports.

"DP World will transfer fully the U.S. operations ... to a United States entity," the firm's top executive, H. Edward Bilkey, said in an announcement that capped weeks of controversy.

Relieved Republicans in Congress said the firm had pledged full divestiture, a decision that one senator said had been approved personally by the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates.

The announcement appeared to indicate an end to a politically tinged controversy that brought President Bush and Republicans in Congress to the brink of an election-year veto battle on a terrorism-related issue. CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger reports Republicans say they have to establish their own credentials on national security with a president whose popularity rating is 34 percent at the polls.

The White House expressed satisfaction with the outcome.

"It does provide a way forward and resolve the matter," presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said.

"We have a strong relationship with the UAE and a good partnership in the global war on terrorism and I think their decision reflects the importance of our broader relationship," he said.

A leading congressional critic of the ports deal, Rep. Peter King, applauded the decision but said he and others would wait to see the details. "It would have to be an American company with no links to DP World, and that would be a tremendous victory and very gratifying," said the New York Republican, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

"This should make the issue go away," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. The Tennessee Republican was one of several GOP leaders to tell President Bush earlier in the day that Congress was ready to ignore his veto threat and scuttle the deal.

Several Republican officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Frist and Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, had been privately urging the firm to give up its plans.

After weeks of controversy — and White House veto threats that spokesman Scott McClellan renewed at midmorning Thursday — the end came unexpectedly.

CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod reports the battle has been more about politics than policy. When it became clear that Congress had enough votes to override a veto, the political fight was over.

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