U.S. Embassy in Iraq - another quagmire of brutalizing contractors and profiteering

and we are suprised because...?

The Kuwait-headquartered, Lebanese-run company [First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting, the lead builder for the new 592-million-dollar U.S. embassy in Baghdad] has billed several billion dollars on U.S. contracts since the war began in March 2003. Much of its work is performed by cheap labour largely hired from South Asia and the company has an estimated 7,500 foreign labourers in the theatre of war.

Now, with a highly secretive contract awarded by the U.S. State Department, First Kuwaiti is in the midst of building the most expensive and heavily fortified U.S. embassy in the world. Scheduled to open in 2007, the sprawling complex near the Tigris River will equal Vatican City in size.

But Owen says that working on the project proved to be one of the worst jobs he has ever had in his 27 years of construction work.

Not one of the five different U.S. embassy sites Owen had worked on around the world previously compared to the mess he describes. Armenia, Bulgaria, Angola, Cameroon and Cambodia all had their share of dictators, violence and economic disruption, but the companies building the embassies were always fair and professional, he says. First Kuwaiti is the exception. Brutal and inhumane, he says "I've never seen a project more f*cked up. Every U.S. labour law was broken."

Seven months after signing on with First Kuwaiti in November 2005, he quit.

In his resignation letter last June, Owen told First Kuwaiti and U.S. State Department officials that his managers physically assaulted and beat the construction workers, demonstrated little regard for worker safety, and routinely breached security.

And it was all happening smack in the middle of the U.S.-controlled Green Zone, he said -- right under the nose of the State Department that had quietly awarded the controversial embassy contract in July 2005.

and guess what OTHER contracting company is hovering in the background...?

Some contractors, many working as subcontractors to Halliburton/KBR in Iraq, were found to be using deceptive, bait-and-switch hiring practices and charging recruiting fees that indebted low-paid migrant workers for many months or even years to their employers. Contractors were also accused of providing substandard, crowded sleeping quarters, serving poor food, and circumventing Iraqi immigration procedures.

While the Pentagon declines to specifically name those contractors found to be doing business in this way, it also acknowledged in an Apr. 19 memorandum that it was a widespread practice among contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan to take away workers' passports. Holding onto employee passports -- a direct violation of U.S. labour trafficking laws -- helped stop workers from leaving war-torn Iraq or taking better jobs with other contractors.

obviously, when we weren't looking, the u.s. quietly decided to once again condone slavery...

Submit To Propeller
Tweet