Dubai is an amazing place, a small desert port at the edge of the Persian Gulf that has exploded into a work-in-progress of construction cranes and half-built high rises. Every time I visit, it looks different. Bigger, busier, more extravagant. The word boomtown seems inadequate to describe the frenetic pace. It is Hong Kong on steroids at the moment.
But the United Arab Emirates, where Dubai is located, is also a place touched by 9/11. Terrorist money came through here, so did some of the hijackers, who flew through Dubai's famed airport.
This is how what seemed to be a dull business story about port contracts has become a political and emotional controversy. One shipping company buying another is big money, but not big news, unless the company doing the buying is another one of those go-go Dubai companies, the Dubai Ports World, and the other company controls container shipping at several U.S. ports, including New York.
That's where we are tonight. A company from a country tinged with 9/11 is seemingly suddenly in charge of running several American ports (did I mention the company they are buying-out is also foreign?). The White House says it is OK. International shippers say the company has a great record. But 9/11 families and members of Congress say different. Even the former head of DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, says he can understand why politicians are saying "wait a minute."
By the way, the British government also had a chance to block the deal, because the Dubai company would be in charge of a couple of UK ports. It didn't. This one ain't going away for a while.