Inchcape Shipping Services Last Updated: October 13, 2008
Since 2000, Dubai-owned Inchcape Shipping
Services has landed over $60 million in contracts with the Army, Navy, Air
Force, Coast Guard, and Department of Homeland Security. Inchcape provides so-called “ship husbanding,”
which involves planning for a ship’s arrivals and departures, rounding up supplies
it will need at sea, and providing security for it while it’s in port. The Navy stepped up contracting procedures on ship husbanding following the suicide bombing of the USS Cole while it was docked in Yemen. (Many Naval officials believe the suicide bombers, who struck about three hours after the Cole arrived in the Yemeni port of Aden, had to have had advance knowledge of the Cole’s itinerary.)
Inchcape is a subsidiary of Istithmar, part of the investing arm of Dubai, one of the seven United Arab Emirates. The UAE is technically an ally of the United States in the war on terror, but its allegiances seem, at best, conflicted.
UAE was a major banking center for September 11 hijackers, and over half of the hijackers flew through Dubai before the attacks. Hijackers in the U.S. received money from the UAE before the attacks. Evan Kohlmann, a terrorism analyst who has consulted for the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department, claims Al-Qaeda still transfers money through UAE.
Dubai also owns Dubai Ports World, the company that created an uproar when it bought a British ports company that ran several U.S. ports. Several Congressmen complained to Treasury Secretary John Snow—who, as head of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, had the power to approve the deal—that his very own agency had complained of UAE stonewalling during an investigation of Osama Bin Laden’s finances.
In 2002, U.S. authorities captured Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole attack, living in UAE. Nonetheless, the Navy in 2005 awarded Inchcape a $50 million contract for ship husbanding of Naval vessels in Southeast Asia, including the Middle East. Inchcape’s duties for the U.S. military include “force protection,” and the company knows Navy ship schedules weeks in advance.
Inchcape is also partnering with Kellogg Brown and Root—a subsidiary of Halliburton, where Vice President Cheney formerly served as CEO—to assist the military with “training exercises.”
Categories
Sources
- Following the Terrorists’ Money, Business Week, October 1, 2001:
www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_40/b3751720.htm -
The Dubai Deal You Don’t Know About, Time, March 9, 2006: www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1171773,00.html
www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/Dubai_Ports_letter.pdf - Bin Laden’s Operatives Still Using Freewheeling Dubai, USA Today, September 2, 2004: www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-09-02-terror-dubai_x.htm