Politicized ports

Politics: DP World's decision to bow out of a ports deal with the U.S. may not end a dispute more about winning political points than securing the nation from terrorists | John Dawson

Democratic opposition to the Bush Administration's plan to allow Dubai's DP World to purchase operational control of a half dozen U.S. ports from a private British firm could have been expected. But President George W. Bush was never able to rally Republican troops to his side. When the President stood up for a deal that would have put a state-owned Arab company in charge of six United States seaports, Capitol Hill Republicans didn't follow. DP World announced yesterday it will sell its U.S. operations to an "unrelated U.S. buyer" in four to six months.

DP World's bow-out may not end a dispute more about winning political points than securing the nation from terrorists. It didn't begin with the DP World acquisition but when a rival stevedore in Florida hired a single lobbyist, who knew just where to go. New York Senator Charles Schumer helped transform what had previously been a banal story in the financial press into a political brushfire that engulfed the nation and scorched the President.