March 12 (Bloomberg) -- A group representing U.S. companies in the United Arab Emirates said it will invite ``The Oprah Winfrey Show'' among other talk shows to the Gulf to alter American public opinion which helped block Dubai's takeover of five U.S. ports.

The American Business Group of Abu Dhabi, which has more than 500 members including Boeing Co. and Exxon Mobil Corp., wants Winfrey to host a show from the Persian Gulf sheikhdom as it seeks to convince Americans that the country isn't a threat to national security, Kevin Massengill, a board member of the group said in a phone interview yesterday from Abu Dhabi.

``We want to reach out to the average guy in the U.S. and explain why the U.A.E. is important,'' the former adviser to the U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi, who is among a delegation from the group that plans to visit Washington this month to discuss the blocked deal with lawmakers, said.

DP World, a ports company owned by the Maktoum family that rules Dubai, one of the seven sheikdoms in the United Arab Emirates, was forced to sell the U.S. port operations of Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. after Congressional leaders said it could open the U.S. to terrorist attack.

A CNN poll on March 2 showed that 75 percent of Americans believed the Dubai takeover of ports posed a threat to U.S. security. Two of the Sept. 11 attackers came from the United Arab Emirates, whose banks were used by the plotters to funnel money for the operation.

Officials for Harpo Productions, Inc., which produces ``The Oprah Winfrey Show,'' were unavailable for comment when called yesterday.

`Hooters'

U.S. talk show hosts including David Letterman and Jay Leno have ridiculed Dubai on television for the last month. Leno compared the decision to allow Dubai to control U.S. ports to putting ``Bill Clinton in charge of a Hooters.''

Hooters of America Inc. is a restaurant chain that is best known for the low-cut T-shirts worn by its waitresses.

``Maybe we should have explained the deal better to our friends on Capitol Hill and not just the administration,'' a U.A.E. government spokesman said in a phone interview from Abu Dhabi yesterday.

CNN's Sunday talk show, Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, broadcast live from Dubai on March 5 and made the ports debate the central theme of the program. Late Edition, which each week asks viewers a `Question of the Week,' is today asking ``did Congress overreact to the Dubai Ports Deal.''

Approved by Bush

Dubai Port's $6.8 billion buyout of the U.K.'s P&O had been approved by President George W. Bush before a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers led by New York Senator Charles Schumer requested that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States investigate the purchase.

``Several prominent locals believe Dubai should have prepared better for the criticism in the U.S.,'' Anthony Harris, a former U.K. ambassador to the U.A.E., said in a phone interview yesterday. ``There is no doubt they misjudged public opinion.''

The United Arab Emirates is a key military ally of the U.S. in the Persian Gulf allowing Fifth Fleet naval vessels including American nuclear aircraft carriers the rights to dock at its ports.

Tom Mollo, head of Middle East for the U.K.-based public relations agency Bell Pottinger, which represents DP World, declined to comment on his firm's handling of Dubai's purchase of P&O. Bell Pottinger is a subsidiary of Chime Communications Plc.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andy Critchlow in Dubai on at acritchlow1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 12, 2006 09:33 EST