National security

About a year and a half ago, I was dismayed by the showboating over the dire security threat posed by Dubai Port World handling containers at US ports. An interesting follow-up appeared in last week's letters to The Economist:

SIR – You accepted as fact the perception that last year's uproar over DP World buying some port operations in the United States was all about national security (“DP World's long shadow”, June 16th). As any astute observer of inside Washington's Beltway would know, the uproar was more to do with the political dynamics of an election year. As proof, consider the Secure Freight Initiative, the American programme launched in direct response to our crisis: DP World is the central partner in the private sector. In other words, we are building a programme to protect America from the very same threat that Congress said we posed to America in the first place. No one on Capitol Hill has uttered a word of protest.

Michael Moore
Senior vice-president
DP World
Dubai