Michael McAuliff of the New York Daily News authors a piece with the provocative headline, “Dubai company set to run U.S. ports has ties to administration.”
The Dubai firm that won Bush administration backing to run six U.S. ports has at least two ties to the White House.
One is Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose department heads the federal panel that signed off on the $6.8 billion sale of an English company to government-owned Dubai Ports World – giving it control of Manhattan’s cruise ship terminal and Newark’s container port. Snow was chairman of the CSX rail firm that sold its own international port operations to DP World for $1.15 billion in 2004, the year after Snow left for President Bush’s cabinet.
The other connection is David Sanborn, who runs DP World’s European and Latin American operations and who was tapped by Bush last month to head the U.S. Maritime Administration.
The ties raised more concerns about the decision to give port control to a company owned by a nation linked to the Sept. 11 hijackers. “The more you look at this deal, the more the deal is called into question,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who said the deal was rubber-stamped in advance – even before DP World formally agreed to buy London’s P&O port company.
These “ties” are rather tenuous, to say the least. Given the nature of multi-national conglomerates, it would be odd indeed if senior administration officials did not have “ties” of this order.
I especially love the Snow “tie.” The conglomerate of which he was chairman sold something the year after he left to another conglomerate? I suspect there are “ties” that close to Kevin Bacon.
