U.S. allegedly using forced labor to build embassy in Iraq

[RufusTFirefly]

Source: Miami Herald

Abuse of workers building U.S. embassy in Iraq alleged

BY RENEE SCHOOF
Two former employees of First Kuwaiti Trading and Contracting, the company that's building the new $592 million U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, testified to a House of Representatives panel Thursday that they had observed abuses of construction workers.

John Owens, who worked on the site as a security liaison from November 2005 to June 2006, said he had seen foreign workers packed in trailers and working 12 hours a day, seven days a week, with time off on Fridays for Muslim prayers. Several told him they earned about $300 a month, after fees were taken out, and that they were docked three days' pay for such offenses as clocking in five minutes late.

Rory Mayberry, who said he had been a medic on the site for five days, said First Kuwaiti had asked him to escort 51 Filipino men from Kuwait to Baghdad but not to tell them where they were going. Their tickets showed that they were flying to Dubai, Mayberry said. They screamed protests when they discovered on the flight that they were headed to Baghdad, he said.

snip...

In a hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., said Americans were responsible because U.S. taxpayers' money paid the workers. Republican Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut agreed.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/416/v-print/story/183639.html

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Stealing a page from the extraordinary rendition playbook, eh? Nice!
U-S-A! U-S-A!

[C_U_L8R]

1. Oh you mean Slave Labor ???

no.... republicans see no problem with that

[RufusTFirefly]

3. No, no, no. You've got it all wrong

The Filipino workers (who, incidentally, thought they were heading to Dubai to work in the hotels) suddenly became very enthusiastic about their change in assignment after someone on the plane brandished a weapon.

This little tidbit was mentioned on the KPFA Evening News for July 26, 2007. (Archive should be available shortly.)

[Barrett808]

11. The stream is posted now

Story starts at 10:15.
Gun brandishing at 13:18.
http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=21445

"When the airplane took off, and the captain announced that we were headed to Baghdad, all you-know-what broke out on the airplane. The men started shouting. It wasn't until the security guy working for First Kuwaiti waved an MP5 in the air that the men settled down. They realized that they had no other choice than to go to Baghdad. Let me spell it out clearly: I believe these men were kidnapped by 1st Kuwaiti to work on the US embassy."

[RufusTFirefly]

12. Thank you! Thank you! n/t

[C_U_L8R]

13. ooooooooooooh. that's different then.

(((yikes)))

[Lionel Mandrake]

2. Something similar happened in Europe in the 1940s.

What was the name of that other great leader who made extensive use of slave labor to support his war?

[indepat]

8. Don't recall the name but didn't he were a funny little mustache?

[RufusTFirefly]

9. I'm drawin' a blank heah...

[Lint Head]

4. What's new? They use torture. They use slave labor.

:dem:

[RufusTFirefly]

5. This news is so ho-hum. Please be sure to recommend it. n/t

[Rydz777]

6. Building this Taj Mahal in the middle of Baghdad is a mindless

stupidity, but it gets minimum attention because of all the other mindless stupidities that crowd it out of the news.

[Lionel Mandrake]

15. Sort of like the Rog Mahal in the middle of Los Angeles

If you live too far away from LA, you might not get my drift.

[stillcool]

7. If anyone has the time...

I stumbled across this great read..., it just about provides a blue print to today's reality...

The Saga of Hog Island,1917-1921: The Story of the First Great War Boondoggle1
by James J. Martin
http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/hogisle.shtml

and a more recent albeit magnified version:

Why the US Is Not Leaving Iraq: The Booming Business of War Profiteers
By Prof. Ismael Hossein-zadeh *
Global Research
January 12, 2007
------------------
As the Pentagon’s manufacturing contractors such as Lockheed Martin make fortunes through the production of the means of death and destruction, they also create profit opportunities for service contractors such as Halliburton that, like vultures, follow the plumes of the smoke of deconstruction and set up shop for "reconstruction."

For example, in the same month (October 2006) that the US forces lost a record number of soldiers in Iraq, and the Iraqi citizens lost many more, Halliburton announced that its third quarter revenue had risen by 19 percent to $5.8 billion. This prompted Dave Lesar, the company’s chairman, president and CEO, to declare, "This was an exceptional quarter for Halliburton."

Jeff Tilley, an analyst who does research for Halliburton, likewise pointed out, "Iraq was better than expected. . . . Overall, there is nothing really to question or be skeptical about. I think the results are very good."

This led many critics to point out scornfully that when around the same time Vice President Dick Cheney told Rush Limbaugh that "if you look at the overall situation they're doing remarkably well," he must have been talking about Halliburton. 6

The service and "rebuilding" contractors are frequently called "reconstruction rackets" not only because they obtain generous and often no-bid contracts from their policy-making accomplices, but also because they habitually shirk on their contracts and skimp on what they promise to do. For example, an investigative on-the-ground report from Iraq, sponsored by the Institute for Southern Studies and titled "New Investigation Reveals Reconstruction Racket," showed that despite "billions of dollars spent, key pieces of Iraq's infrastructure—power plants, telephone exchanges, and sewage and sanitation systems—have either not been repaired, or have been fixed so poorly that they don't function."

The report, carried out by Pratap Chatterjee and Herbert Docena and published in the Institutes’ Publication Southern Exposure, further revealed that the giant Pentagon contractor Bechtel "has been given tens of millions to repair Iraq's schools. Yet many haven't been touched, and several schools that Bechtel claims to have repaired are in shambles. One 'repaired' school was overflowing with unflushed sewage."

The report also showed that out of a $2.2 billion "reconstruction" contract with Halliburton, the company spent only 10 percent on "community needs—the rest being spent on servicing U.S. troops and rebuilding oil pipelines. Halliburton has also spent over $40 million in the unsuccessful search for weapons of mass destruction." 7
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/contract/2007/0112warprofiteers.htm

[Stinky The Clown]

10. And here I thought the Dems were the party of slavery

Who knew?

[MetaTrope]

14. And this was first reported to the State Department a year ago

Anyone know if Condi flew to the Green Zone to enjoy some chained boy toys?

[Posteritatis]

16. Isn't using forced labor to build that critical a facility kinda, uh, unwise?

Even leaving aside the whole "evil" aspect, I mean?