Donald Rumsfeld has been leading an effort to “reform” the Defense Department’s personnel system. On June 4, 2003, he testified to the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs that the new system would preserve bargaining rights for Pentagon employees:

[T]he National Security Personnel System we are proposing…will not end collective bargaining. … To the contrary, the right of defense employees to bargain collectively would be continued. What it would do is bring collective bargaining to the national level so that the Department could negotiate with national unions instead of dealing with more than 1,300 different union locals, a process that is inefficient.

Unfortunately for Rumsfeld, the Homeland Security Department had already tried this scheme and been rejected. The judge in that case batted down the argument that government agencies can strip away bargaining rights in the interest of “flexibility”:

Congress made protection of the right to bargain collectively an independent statutory requirement. It did not give the Agencies discretion to sacrifice collective bargaining in the interests of flexibility, any more than it authorized them to rely upon “flexibility” to waive merit system principles or other rights.

Today, U.S. District Court Judge Emmett G. Sullivan agreed with the reasoning in the Homeland Security Department case. He rejected the argument made by Rumsfeld in 2003, finding that the new Pentagon personnel system violates the law:

[A]s was the case in Chertoff I, this Court concludes that…the new rule fails to ensure even minimal collective bargaining rights.

It’s a big victory for the 700,000 Pentagon employees working to defend our country, who deserve better than to have their own Defense Secretary trying to strip away their rights.

At today’s White House press briefing, Scott McClellan sought to assure the American public that the UAE’s ties to terrorism had been addressed prior to the ports deal:

This was a transaction that was closely scrutinized by national security experts who are involved in these decisions and by our intelligence community. The intelligence community provided an assessment. The Department of Homeland Security also worked to make sure any national security concerns were addressed, by entering into an agreement with the company and requiring some additional security assurances before it moved forward. But this was a consensus of all the relevant departments and agencies — there are some 12 altogether — that are part of that Committee on Foreign Investment.

But Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) today released an unclassified version of a document showing that the U.S. Coast Guard — located in the Department of Homeland Security — “cautioned the Bush administration that it was unable to determine whether a United Arab Emirates-owned company might support terrorist operations.” From the document:

There are many intelligence gaps, concerning the potential for DPW or P&O assets to support terrorist operations, that precludes an overall threat assessment of the potential merger. … The breadth of the intelligence gaps also infer potential unknown threats against a large number of potential vulnerabilities.

The Bush administration’s defense of the deal continues to unravel.

UPDATE: Here is the Coast Guard memo.

UPDATE: VIDEO Read more

The administration is desperate to “avert an impending political showdown” with Congress about the UAE port deal. Over the weekend, the White House worked out an arrangement with Dubai Ports World whereby the company would “voluntarily” submit the sale of port operations to an additional 45-day review.

The showdown has not been averted. The review, under current law, would be meaningless. The report would be secret. Only President Bush and the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) would get to review it. Both Bush and CFIUS have already decided the deal does not present any national security concerns.

Today, a bipartisan group of 10 members of Congress will introduce legislation that will give the review some teeth. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) talked about the legislation this morning on Good Morning America:

SCHUMER: Well, I’m not sure we have a truce. Our legislation, which is bipartisan, five Democrats, five Republicans — we’ll introduce it today on the floor of the Senate — says do the 45-day review that’s necessary, but it also says give Congress, not just the president, the findings and let Congress have an opportunity — 30 days — to disapprove the deal. That’s what’s needed, because the president has already decided. He said he’s for it. So he has the verdict already, and now he’s having the trial.

Any member of Congress who supports a meaningful review of the transaction should support this legislation.

UPDATE: More details on the bill from Sen. Robert Menedez (D-NJ).