ARM7 LPC2138 SPIO issues

I am attempting to communicate as a master with the Phillips LPC2138 over the SPI0 interface with a digital potentiometer. The potentiometer does not have a serial output feeding back into the LPC2138. In the debugger when you track the registers for the SPI0 peripheral the data that I write to be transmitted never shows up in the S0SPDR. Below is the relevant code that I use to interface with the SPI0.

The initializing code is given below:

 /***********************************************/
void InitLampControl(void)
{
        /* set pins to use SPI interface as follows: */
        /* P0.4 as SPI SCK0 */
        /* P0.5 as SPI MISO0 */
        /* P0.6 as SPI MOSI0 */
        /* P0.7 as SPI SSEL_POT */
        PINSEL0 = PINSEL0 | 0x00001500;

        /* set SPI clock divider */
        /* PCLK is 14.7456 MHz */
        /* want SPI clock about 7MHz */
        /* set SPI clock divider to 148, divider value must be even */
        S0SPCCR = 148;  /* decimal value */

        /* set SPI control register */
        /* 16 bit data, phase 0, SCK active high, master */
        /* MSb first, interrupts inactive */
        S0SPCR = 0x0024;

        /* Set P0.7 (GPIO7 "SSEL_POT") as an output tied low */
        IODIR0 = 0x00000080;
        IOSET0 = 0x00000080; /* SSEL_POT = 1 */

        /* set interrupt addr for SPI interface */
        /* VICVectAddr5 = (unsigned long) SPI0IRQHandler; */
        /* enable vectored interrupt for slot 5 and assign to SPI */
        /* VICVectCntl5 = 0x2A; */
        /* enable interrupts for SPI interface */
        /* VICIntEnable = VICIntEnable | 0x400; */
}

and the following code is what I used to try and send the data to the digital potentiometer

           /* write value to AD5290 out the SPI interface */
                g_SPIReady = FALSE;

                IOCLR0 = 0x00000080;    /* set SSEL low to target POT */
                S0SPDR = 0x11E3;
                do
                {
                        nDummyRead = S0SPSR;
                        if((nDummyRead & 0x80)==0x80)
                        {
                                nDummyRead = S0SPDR;
                                g_SPIReady = TRUE;
                        }
                }
                while (g_SPIReady==FALSE); /* wait for end of transfer */
                IOSET0 = 0x00000080; /* set SSEL back high */

Any help or suggestions as to why my code is not communicating correctly would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Jonathan