Back in the United States, a newly-released memo from the US Coast Guard contradicts the Bush administration’s claim a foreign-owned company at the center of a political firestorm over US ports was cleared of links to terrorism. Democrats and Republicans have criticized the Bush administration for allowing Dubai-owned DP World to manage operations at six leading U.S. ports. The Coast Guard memo says: “There are many intelligence gaps, concerning the potential for [DP World]… assets to support terrorist operations, that precludes an overall threat assessment of the potential merger.… The breadth of the intelligence gaps also infer potential unknown threats against a large number of potential vulnerabilities.”