Using Asia's Poor to Build U.S. Bases in Iraq

[Judi Lynn]

Using Asia's Poor to Build U.S. Bases in Iraq

By David Phinney, CorpWatch. Posted October 15, 2005.

Jing Soliman left his family in the Philippines for what sounded like a sure thing -- a job as a warehouse worker at Camp Anaconda in Iraq. His new employer, Prime Projects International (PPI) of Dubai, is a major, but low-profile, subcontractor to Halliburton's multi-billion-dollar deal with the Pentagon to provide support services to U.S. forces.

But Soliman wouldn't be making anything near the salaries -- starting $80,000 a year and often topping $100,000 -- that Halliburton's engineering and construction unit, Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR) pays to the truck drivers, construction workers, office workers, and other laborers it recruits from the United States. Instead, the 35-year-old father of two anticipated $615 a month -- including overtime. For a 40-hour work week, that would be just over $3 an hour. But for the 12-hour day, seven-day week that Soliman says was standard for him and many contractor employees in Iraq, he actually earned $1.56 an hour.

Soliman planned to send most of his $7,380 annual pay home to his family in the Philippines, where the combined unemployment and underemployment rate tops 28 percent. The average annual income in Manila is $4,384, and the World Bank estimates that nearly half of the nation's 84 million people live on less than $2 a day.

"I am an ordinary man," said Soliman during a recent telephone interview from his home in Quezon City near Manila. "It was good money."
(snip/...)

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/26660/

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. What is old..... is new

again... now where is our white hat again.

http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm
Brown & Root: Johnson’s Primary Financial Supporter

Throughout Lyndon Johnson’s career, Brown & Root was his biggest financial supporter. Today the company is a huge defense contractor. It was founded by Herman Brown in the 1920s. The son of a Belton, Texas shopkeeper, Herman’s career had a humble beginning. But Alvin Wirtz and Lyndon Johnson helped Brown & Root acquire huge defense contracts from President Roosevelt in the late 1930s. The company prospered a great deal after America’s entry into World War II. Brown & Root returned the favor by giving Johnson virtually any financial help he requested.

Brown & Root continued to grow as the primary contractor for building military bases. When Johnson got America into the Vietnam War, Brown & Root made a fortune constructing military bases in Southeast Asia. They built the Tan Son Nhut Air Base and reportedly built many of the infamous tiger cages used to brutalize and torture suspected enemies of the Saigon regime.60 Tiger Cages were cells constructed below ground with just enough room to fit one person. Prisoners were put in these as punishment for various infractions of the rules.

As of this writing (2002) Brown & Root is owned by the Halliburton Company, a prestigious defense contractor based in Dallas, Texas. Until July 25, 2000, Vice-President Dick Cheney was CEO and chairman of the board of the Halliburton Company. The following is a profile of the Halliburton Company from Yahoo.com stock quotes:

[Judi Lynn]

2. I'm having trouble with the link you posted.Looked it up....

and I'm having trouble posting it, too, even though you can get it from google's link!

http://www.jfkmontreal.com/johnson's_hidden_loyalties.htm

So anyone who wants to read the link can click this google search, and then click on "Johnson's Hidden Loyalties:"

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Brown+%26+Root%3A+Johnson%E2%80%99s+Primary+Financial+Supporter&btnG=Google+Search

Thanks.