Secret Deal Allows Company Tied to Saddam’s Nuclear Bombmaker, Iran and U.A.E. to Manage Key Florida Port Facilities, Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew unilaterally approved the lease for Gulftainer — a Middle Eastern ports company owned by the Emir of Sharjah of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iraqi businessman Hamid Dhia Jafar — following two years of secret talks. It is deeply concerning that Lew and the Obama administration decided to forego any national security threat analysis by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) which certainly seems in order given the nature and implications of this deal. After all, a similarly fraught arrangement — a contract for Dubai Ports World to manage a number of U.S. ports a decade ago — was submitted for CFIUS approval, and ultimately aborted. In addition to being an important seaport in its own right, Port Canaveral is in close proximity to a number of key U.S. facilities — including the Navy’s East Coast ballistic missile submarine base, two U.S. Air Force Space Command bases and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.