Bushists Have Business Ties to Dubai Port Company

Katrina Vanden Heuval of The Nation breaks down what the whole Dubya/Dubai port security scandal is really all about (besides knocking Cheney, illegal domestic spying, and the ready-to-burst civil war in Iraq down the headline food chain, of course):

The fact is, the administration is defending this deal because their guiding principle is one of maximizing corporate profits, as Harold Meyerson notes in the Washington Post yesterday.

Not surprisingly, the Bush administration has significant business ties to DP World. According to the New York Daily News, David Sanborn, who runs DP World's European and Latin American operations, was named by Bush to direct the U.S. Maritime Administration just last month.
---
So what are the real security issues we need to be talking about? As the Center For American Progress reports, how about the fact that in 2002 the Coast Guard estimated that it would cost $5.4 billion over 10 years to make the necessary improvements to the nation's ports, and last year only $175 million was appropriated to the program?

How about the fact that only 6 percent of the 9 million containers arriving in U.S. ports are physically inspected by customs agents?

Read more.