And they were supposed to perform both a 30-day and 45-day review within a timeframe of 90 days. Under law. They did not do the 45 day review. But they are certain there are no problems here?
This just doesn't look right at all.
I don't think this has come up yet, but on Dobbs they mentioned the PR firm that Dubai Ports World/UAE has hired to push this deal on the American public/lawmakers.
They are Bell Pottinger, UK. Evidently well known by this administration.
History
In March 2004 BPPA won a $5.8m (£3.2m) four-month contract from the U.S. supported administration in Iraq to promote the establishment of democracy ahead of the handover of power to the interim Iraqi authority on 30 June. According to PR Week, the contract also includes promoting the election of an Iraqi government.
"B-PC will work with its Dubai operation Bates PanGulf, and Baghdad-based media services company Balloch & Roe. A small team will be sent to work with Balloch & Roe's Arabic writers who will advise on how best to cross the cultural divide," PR Week reported.
The project team, PR Week reports will be headed by Mark Turnbull and the head of BPPA's Dubai office Tom Mollo. The Independent (UK) reported that company founder Tim Bell described his role as "masterminding the campaign in London". [1] (http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/media/story.jsp?story=500728) [edit] Clients
Clients include
* BAE Systems * McDonalds * Imperial Tobacco [2] (http://www.bppa.co.uk/clients.html) * Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) [3] (http://www.spinwatch.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1934)
Staff
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bell_Pottinger_Public_Affairs
[snip from Dobbs, aired 2/21/06]But included in this entire strategy is a P.R. campaign by DP World. And as part of that, a high-level delegation flew into Washington from the United Arab Emirates.
A number of people, the delegates, also the commercial attache, they're planning on doing a number of media interviews. They are also planning on talking to U.S. officials on this. But they will not talk to CNN. I spoke to somebody, Mark Dennis, a representative of the P.R. firm Bell Pottinger. He says this delegation will not talk to CNN because "CNN won't shut up Lou Dobbs." Of course he's referring to our early coverage on this story where we were out in front with this story last week.
It's important to note also that they're not denying this interview because of any false reporting or inaccuracies or anything like that. The reason why is they just simply don't want the story out there. Of course we're out here at United Arab Emirates, and we will continue to monitor this and continue to track down this delegation. And they know that we're out here, and they're welcome to come out and do an interview at any time -- Lou.
DOBBS: Lisa, thank you very much. Indeed, they are welcome. As you noted, we first reported this story. We were the first television program to report this story Monday, more than a week ago now.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0602/21/ldt.01.html