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Halliburton Eyed for Dubai Ports Deal

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The Bush administration is working behind the scenes to defuse the Dubai Ports World controversy by having the UAE-based firm team up with an American company.

According to the New York Daily News, which first reported the new White House strategy on Saturday, "one snag may be that sources say the U.S. company best equipped to partner with DP World is Halliburton, once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney."

But a role for Halliburton may not be such a "snag" after all, since the controversial company's involvement has already been endorsed by leading ports security critic, Sen. Charles Schumer.

"I'd take Halliburton over U.A.E. at this point, if I had to take a choice right now," Schumer told the Fox News Channel on Feb. 20.

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  Schumer explained that Democats hate Halliburton not for any security reasons, but because "they made large amounts of profit" from what he said were no-bid contracts in the Iraq war.

But if the company "can do the best job and they get the [ports] contract on the merits," Schumer said, "I'd pat them on the back."

The News said that any revamped deal "would have to be something along the lines of the Marine One contract, where British-and Italian-owned AgustaWestland had to take on Maryland-based Lockheed Martin to win the contract to build the president's helicopter last year."

But a better example may be Port of Long Beach, where the state-run China Ocean Shipping Company [COSCO] was finally allowed to operate two large terminals at the California port after it teamed up with an American firm.

In 1998, Congress blocked COSCO's initial bid to run a terminal at Long Beach that was formerly operated by the U.S. Navy.

In 2001, however, COSCO entered into a joint venture with Stevedoring Services of America to form a new company, Pacific Maritime Services - which signed a 20 year lease to operate what will eventually be five terminals at the port.

The Long Beach deal allowed the Chinese government-owned company to retain a 51 percent controlling interest in PMS.

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