EXCLUSIVE-THE DUBAI DEAL YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT (TIME)

[kpete]

Web Exclusive| Business & Technology
The Dubai Deal You Don't Know About

Even as one company gives up on U.S. ports, a different Middle Eastern firm remains a major contractor for the Navy

By DAREN FONDA



Posted Thursday, Mar. 09, 2006
With midterm elections approaching, no politician wanted to go home and explain to voters why a company controlled by the government of Dubai was taking over operations at six U.S. ports—without so much as a meow of protest from Congress. As it turns out, that won't be necessary. Dubai Ports World, the firm at the center of the controversy, announced today that it would give up its bid to manage U.S. ports, agreeing to transfer the contracts to a “U.S. entity."

Yet while one Dubai company may be giving up on U.S. ports, another one shows no signs of quitting the U.S.—or of giving up a contract with the Navy to provide shore services for vessels in the Middle East. The firm, Inchcape Shipping Services (ISS), is an old British company that last January was sold to a Dubai government investment vehicle for $285 million. ISS has more than 200 offices around the world and provides services to clients ranging from cruise ship operators to oil tankers to commercial cargo vessels. In the U.S., the company operates out of more than a dozen port cities, including Houston, Miami and New Orleans, arranging pilots, tugs, linesmen and stevedores, among other things. The firm is also a defense contractor which has long worked for Britain’s Royal Navy. And last June, the U.S. Navy signed on too, awarding ISS a $50 million contract to be the “Husbanding Agent” for vessels in most Southwest Asia ports, including those in the Middle East, according to an unclassified Navy logistics manual, for the Fifth Fleet, and a press release from ISS.

Why is a Dubai shipping services company doing business with the Pentagon when handing over U.S. port operations to the emirate would supposedly compromise national security? Because it makes sense. Call it the reality of living in a globally connected business world. Your IBM laptop is now manufactured by a Chinese company that may outsource customer support to an Indian firm and the logistics to FedEx. Dubai companies aren't just buying overseas assets like hotels in New York and wax museums in London; they're providing jobs and business for U.S. companies. Boeing, for one, can only hope it doesn't receive a frosty reception the next time it wants to sell airplanes to Dubai's booming airline, Emirates. Rival Airbus would be more than happy to take advantage of Washington's creeping protectionism.

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1171773,00.html

[Miss Chybil]

1. No foreign governments operating our ports, our military, our anything.

That's what we have American companies for.

[napi21]

2. Is there any source to find out just how many US infracture sources

have already been outsourced? I know all about the businesses who have outsourced their customer service, tech cupport and such. I don't mean that! I mean the things like you're talking abou there. Shipping services, port services, aircraft repair and maintenance, etc.

[Wilms]

3. Shhh!

That's classified, for our protection.

[tlsmith1963]

4. This Needs to Be Looked Into

I don't want terrorist-supporting countries involved in *any* of our business! Why does Bush keep doing things like this? It makes me wonder whose side he is *really* on.

Tammy

[file83]

5. Here is the answer to WHY this is happening....

From the article:

The Navy, for one, has long understood that it would be virtually impossible to rely solely on Western-owned companies for critical services. It simply couldn’t operate without local firms providing logistics support at the 200 ports its ships visit around the world.

In other words, the reason this is necessary is because the USA is a...

GLOBAL EMPIRE!!!!

*a-hem*

As I was saying, it is now necessary to compromise our national security because it's too expensive to do so otherwise. That makes sense, right?

[EVDebs]

6. Look into the Ptech/GoAgile scandal revolving around 9-11

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=621725&mesg_id=621857

Plus, there were wargames on 9-11 that Ptech had to have been aware of...

[Wrinkle_In_Time]

7. Google Inchscape and Halliburton...

no need to wear your :tinfoilhat:.

:puke: