[Mb-civic] White House Has Ties to Dubai Firm By Michael McAuliff The New York Daily News

[Michael Butler]

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    White House Has Ties to Dubai Firm
    By Michael McAuliff
    The New York Daily News

    Tuesday 21 February 2006

    Washington - 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 agency 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 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 9/11 hijackers.

    "The more you look at this deal, the more the deal is called into
question," said Sen. Chuck 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.

    Besides operations in New York and Jersey, Dubai would also run port
facilities in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Baltimore and Miami.

    The political fallout over the deal only grows.

    "It's particularly troubling that the United States would turn over its
port security not only to a foreign company, but a state-owned one," said
western New York's Rep. Tom Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican
Campaign Committee. Reynolds is responsible for helping Republicans keep
their majority in the House.

    Snow's Treasury Department runs the Committee on Foreign Investment in
the U.S., which includes 11 other agencies.

    "It always raises flags" when administration officials have ties to a
firm, Rep. Vito Fossella (R-S.I.) said, but insisted that stopping the deal
was more important.

    The Daily News has learned that lawmakers also want to know if a
detailed 45-day probe should have been conducted instead of one that lasted
no more than 25 days.

    According to a 1993 congressional measure, the longer review is mandated
when the company is owned by a foreign government and the purchase "could
result in control of a person engaged in interstate commerce in the U.S.
that could affect the national security of the U.S."

    Congressional sources said the President has until March 2 to trigger
that harder look.

    "The most important thing is for someone to explain how this is
consistent with our national security," Fossella said.