Doubts Back Home Fuel G.O.P. Worries Over Ports Deal

WASHINGTON, March 1 — Senator Jon Kyl, a staunch supporter of President Bush who faces a potentially difficult re-election fight this year, is hearing a lot from constituents in Arizona about the plan to allow a Dubai company to operate shipping terminals at Eastern ports. Most think the deal should be stopped.

"It is almost all critical to dubious," Mr. Kyl said, referring to public opinion at home. "If I have to disagree with the Bush administration, I will."

The port deal has exploded out of nowhere to become a major bone of contention in an election year that had not lacked driving issues.

It is not clear what kind of staying power the deal has as an issue, but for now Republicans have little choice but to acknowledge the objections they are hearing from voters, distancing themselves from Mr. Bush on national security heading toward the midterm elections.

"I traveled my state last week, and I got it at every stop from people," said Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama. "It is sort of symbolic. We don't want our nuclear power industry run by a state that might be hostile to us. The average citizen believes that maintaining American control of our ports is important."

New revelations about Dubai have made it difficult for the White House and its allies on the issue to turn down the political heat, despite the agreement to undertake a 45-day review of the potential security risks from the deal.

The latest twist is a document produced by Al Qaeda in 2002 in which the group claims, without offering any supporting evidence, to have infiltrated the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a part.

"You are well aware that we have infiltrated your security, censorship and monetary agencies along with other agencies that should not be mentioned," said the one-page message, written in Arabic.

It demanded the release of detained Qaeda suspects and hinted that if its demands were not met, the group might strike the emirates.

The document, dated May-June 2002, was obtained by the United States military's Special Operations Command and posted on the Web recently as an appendix to a report by the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Both an author of the report and an American intelligence official cautioned against assuming that the document had relevance to the current debate over the proposed acquisition of port operations in some American cities by a company based in Dubai.

"They're making some big claims, but we don't know the accuracy of the claims," said Brian Fishman, a researcher at the Combating Terrorism Center and a contributor to the report, called "Harmony and Disharmony: Exploiting Al Qaeda's Organizational Vulnerabilities."

"If you were aiming to blackmail a country, you might overstate your ability to do it harm," Mr. Fishman said.

The intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of discussing another country's security status, called the document "an Al Qaeda propaganda document made to intimidate and influence and not necessarily a reflection of reality."

Asked what relevance he thought the document had to the current debate over port security, the official replied, "None."

But the disclosure of the document — which has been reported on by several news outlets, including the Web site of The Weekly Standard, the conservative magazine, and the Scripps Howard News Service — could add to the difficulty Mr. Bush faces in pulling his party together on the issue.

"The anger is coming from Republicans," said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York, the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee and a leading critic of the deal.

"I have never seen an issue like this where it is across the board and so intense," Mr. King said, speaking before news of the Qaeda document began circulating widely.

As Mr. King stood outside the House chamber Tuesday night, one Republican colleague after another sidled up to pat him on the back and offer strong encouragement in his challenge to the port deal and, in effect, the White House.

"This is going to be a tough sell for the administration," said Representative Tom Cole, who was chief of staff at the Republican National Committee before he was elected to the House from Oklahoma. "There is tremendous angst both from a political and policy standpoint."

Lawmakers concede that the White House and its Congressional allies can make a persuasive argument for the arrangement, emphasizing Dubai's value as a strategic military ally and the fact that the state-owned company, DP World, will not run the ports, only some of the terminals, and under the eye of United States security.

But lawmakers and senior aides say those nuances are hard to convey to voters who focus on the idea of a Middle Eastern country with past links to terrorism handling cargo at already vulnerable entry points.

Many Republicans doubt that Mr. Bush will be able to contain the opposition, and Democrats agree, pointing to the unusual amount of bipartisan backing for legislative proposals that would give Congress the final say on the deal.

Most Republicans are not yet willing to draw a line in the sand, and the agreement for the new 45-day review bought the White House some time. But the reservations run deep, and the White House cause has not been helped by what Republicans on Capitol Hill viewed as a dismissive posture by the administration and a needlessly quick veto threat.

"Let's see what happens," said Mr. Kyl of Arizona. "We will do the right thing and let the politics take care of itself."