Speaker appoints top China lobbyist

House Speaker Dennis Hastert has named a lobbyist for Hong Kong billionaire
Li Ka-shing as his top national security and foreign policy adviser, a move
that has made some top House Republicans angry and left others bewildered.

A low-key lawmaker known for avoiding controversy, Hastert's appointment of
Washington, D.C., lobbyist Nancy P. Dorn seemed out of character.

"I can't believe he knew of this person's background," Maryland Republican
Roscoe Bartlett told WorldNetDaily.com. Bartlett is a leading member of the
House National Security Committee.

Dorn lobbied Congress last year on behalf of Li Ka-shing's company,
Hutchison Port Holdings, to prevent legislation Bartlett co-sponsored from
reaching the floor of the House. The legislation instructed the U.S. to urge
the government of Panama to cancel the lease agreements awarded Hutchison
for the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean container ports of the Panama Canal.
Dorn's involvement with Hutchison "is baggage we
don't need, and Hastert doesn't need," Bartlett said. "[Hastert] likes to
get things done and avoid controversy," he added. "I'm sure this must be
inadvertent."

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Dorn, 41, briefly served in the Reagan administration, and won a Schedule C.
political appointment under President George Bush as Assistant Secretary of
the Army (Civil Works), a position she held from 1991-1993. After leaving
the administration, she worked as a lobbyist for Coastal Corporation, the
Houston oil firm owned by the flamboyant and often controversial Oscar
Wyatt.

In 1995, when Dorn was working for Coastal, Wyatt reportedly wrote to
President Clinton threatening to move Coastal Corp. headquarters offshore if
the United States enacted a trade embargo against the Islamic Republic of
Iran. Coastal had become a major purchaser of Iranian crude until the White
House imposed the embargo in April 1995.

"Nancy came to us highly recommended," Hastert spokesman John Feehery told
WND. "We have nothing but the highest regard for her professional abilities.
She is highly qualified for the job." In particular, he said, she "helped
get funding for the contras in Nicaragua" during the Reagan administration,
"so she is a firm anti-Communist."

Feehery added that Speaker Hastert "knew she was a lobbyist," but said that
Hastert "had no specific knowledge" of her ties to Hutchison Port Holdings
or to Li Ka-shing. Feehery's explanation didn't hold water with some fellow
Republicans.

"Here is a person who will be the Speaker's representative to the
Intelligence Committee," one irate Republican staffer told WND. "She will
have access to operational matters, and can in effect task the intelligence
community to do anything. And until yesterday, she has been Li Ka-shing's
person in Washington."

Hastert announced Dorn's appointment on July 13. She replaces Bill Inglee as
the speaker's senior advisor for foreign policy and defense matters, a key
position within the Republican leadership. Dorn will be leaving a lucrative
Washington practice with the law firm of Hooper, Owen & Winfield, for a
lesser-paid job in Congress, where she can be fired at will. Accepting a
dramatic pay cut of this size typically suggests a political motivation, or
else an ulterior financial interest in traveling the wrong way through
Washington's revolving door.

The Washington Representatives 2000 yearbook lists Dorn as servicing a long
list of lucrative accounts, including the AFL-CIO, the Cellular
Telecommunications Industry Association, ANR Pipeline Co., the Construction
management Association of America, Gary-Williams Energy Corp., the National
Cable Television Association, PanAmSat Corp., Waste Management and the Wine
and Spirits Wholesalers of America.

"That's a powerful client list," said fellow Washington lobbyist Bonny
Stilwell. Dorn also represented the governments of oil-rich Kazakhstan, and
the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, lucrative and often difficult accounts.

Kazakhstan has come under fire over the past year for allegations of
election-rigging, while Pakistan often gets accused of being a "terrorist
state" because of its support for militant Kashmiri independence groups.

Most recently, according to congressional sources, the intelligence
community has been tracking Pakistan's efforts with communist China to build
a new generation of nuclear missile, known as the Shaheen 1 & Shaheen 2.

"If there are Chinese genes in these missiles, that would trigger sanctions
under the Missile Technology Control Regime," said Richard Fisher, an expert
on Chinese military systems with the Jamestown Foundation in Washington. As
Pakistan's lobbyist, it would have been Dorn's job to see that those
sanctions were never applied.

But by far her most controversial client is Hutchison Port Holdings, the
firm controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing.

"Hutchison Wampoa has a colorful past and is particularly close to the
leadership in Beijing," former Reagan White House official Roger W.
Robinson, Jr. told WND.
The company and its owner figure prominently in numerous U.S. government
intelligence reports, because of their activities on behalf of the Chinese
leadership.

"Li is reputed to have a close business relationship with key figures in
Beijing," states an

15 August 1999 cable from the American Embassy in Hong Kong. "Some have suggested that it was because of Li's mainland connections that the man behind the 1996 kidnapping of his son Victor was arrested last year in China and swiftly executed."

The cable was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Commerce by WND correspondent Charles Smith.

An

October 1999 "Intelligence Assessment" prepared by the U.S. Southern Command Joint Intelligence Center, warned that "Hutchison's containerized shipping facilities in the Panama Canal, as well as the Bahamas, could provide a conduit for illegal shipments of technology or prohibited items from the west to the PRC, or facilitate the movement of arms and other prohibited items into the Americas."

The intelligence report noted that Beijing's direct ties to Li Ka-shing could pose a threat to the weak Panamanian economy.

"Hutchison Whampoa's owner, Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, has extensive business ties in Beijing and has compelling financial reasons to maintain a good relationship with Beijing," the report stated. "For example, Hutchison Whampoa could threaten to shift some business from Panama to its facilities in the Bahamas, thus giving the company additional leverage over the Panamanian government."

A

newly released cable from the U.S. embassy in Panama, dated July 5, 1996, accuses Beijing of funneling money into Li Ka-shing's company through China Resources, a known intelligence front. "Embassy Panama has received information to the effect that HIT (Hutchison International Terminals) is controlled by mainland Chinese perhaps through a Macao front which allegedly recently invested $400 million in HIT," the cable states. "Such control would have security implications and might affect the Panamanian government's views on awarding the port concessions."

House concurrent resolution 186, introduced last year by California Republican Dana Rohrabacher and 89 co-sponsors, resulted from growing alarm in Congress generated by these and other intelligence reports of Li's ties to Beijing, and fears that his company's presence at either end of the Panama Canal could pose a security threat to the United States -- fears Hutchison Port Holdings has dismissed.

The bill called for a "new bidding process that is both transparent and fair" to award new contracts for the ports. It also called on the government of Panama to "investigate charges of corruption related to the granting of the Panama Canal port leases" to Hutchison Port Holdings.

So far, in part because of Dorn's lobbying efforts, the bill has never been brought to the House floor for a vote. Now, as Hastert's top foreign policy advisor, she can make sure it never sees the light of day.

Kenneth Timmerman is a contributing reporter and

Charles Smith is a staff national security reporter for WorldNetDaily.com.