-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: July 26, 2007 10:22:47 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Great-Beast-Bush Building "Babylon the Great" with Slave
Labor
Foreign Workers Abused at Embassy, Panel Told
By William Branigin
Washington Post, July 27, 2007; A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/26/
AR2007072601792_pf.html
Two American civilian contractors who worked on a massive U.S.
Embassy construction project in Baghdad told Congress yesterday
that foreign laborers were deceptively recruited and trafficked to
Iraq to toil at the site, where they experienced physical abuse and
substandard working conditions.
State Department officials disputed the charges, telling a House
committee that inspections had not substantiated the worst reported
abuses.
The accounts were delivered at a hearing of the House Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform on allegations of waste, fraud and
abuse in the construction of a huge new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad at
a cost of nearly $600 million. The embassy, slated to be the
largest diplomatic mission in the world, is being built by a
Kuwaiti firm, First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Co.,
which was awarded the contract after no U.S. company would meet the
<unreasonable> terms, the committee was told.
First Kuwaiti's labor practices are under investigation by the
Justice Department, which is looking into allegations that foreign
employees were brought into Iraq under false pretenses and were
unable to leave because the company had confiscated their passports.
First Kuwaiti has termed those allegations "ludicrous." The company
declined the committee's invitation to testify or provide officials
for interviews, said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of
the oversight committee.
Testifying before the committee yesterday, John Owens, an American
who worked for First Kuwaiti at the embassy site as a construction
foreman from November 2005 to June 2006, said he found living and
working conditions for the foreign laborers there "deplorable."
Because of difficulty hiring Iraqis for work inside the heavily
fortified Green Zone, most of the laborers were from such countries
as India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Sierra
Leone, the committee was told.
Foreign workers lived in tightly packed trailers and had
"insufficient equipment and basic needs -- stuff like shoes and
gloves," Owens said.
They worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and made as little
as $240 a month, he said. They were "verbally and physically
abused" and had their salaries docked for petty infractions, he added.
Rory J. Mayberry, an emergency medical technician who worked
briefly at the embassy site under a subcontract, testified that he
was asked by First Kuwaiti managers to escort 51 Filipinos through
the Kuwait airport and onto a flight to Baghdad. However, "all of
our tickets said we were going to Dubai," he said, adding that a
First Kuwaiti manager instructed him not to tell any of the
Filipinos that they were going to Baghdad.
He said the men were basically "kidnapped by First Kuwaiti to work
on the U.S. Embassy." Their passports had been confiscated, and
they were driven away on buses after landing in Baghdad, then were
"smuggled into the Green Zone," he said.
Howard J. Krongard, the State Department inspector general,
strongly disputed the allegations in a subsequent session of the
hearing. He testified that a "limited review" he conducted and
inquiries by the inspector general of the U.S.-led military force
in Iraq did not substantiate the abuse claims.
"Nothing came to our attention that caused us to believe that human-
trafficking violations" or other serious abuses "occurred at the
construction workers' camp at the new embassy compound," Krongard
said.
Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL.com.
www.ctrl.org
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsâis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/
<A HREF="http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
