‘*Backpages’ Archives
Marking Up The Reconstruction
The Civilian Police Training: A top-priority Bush administration project for training Iraqi police by DynCorp is now mired in controversy for unexplained cost overruns, questionable work orders and much more. Congress, the Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction and [...]
Baghdad Embassy Investigated for Labor Trafficking and Abuse
Baghdad Embassy Investigated for Labor Trafficking and Abuse By David Phinney, IraqSlogger Posted on June 1, 2007 Editor's note: Rumors of labor trafficking and abuse have plagued the building contractor now completing the $592 million Baghdad embassy building project, but a State Department inspector general investigation reported finding [...]
Escape from Iraq: Filipino Migrant Worker Recounts Nightmare Flight
He Didn't Want to Go: Ramil Autencio thought he was traveling to Kuwait for a job in a luxury hotel. The employer, a major Kuwait contractor working for the US government, instead pressured him to work on US military camps in Iraq. The father of two recounts his escape with more than 40 others during interview in Manila. He says he never wanted [...]
Blood, Sweat and Tears at New U.S. Embassy
WASHINGTON, Jun 8, 2007 - The U.S. Justice Department is actively investigating allegations of forced labour and other abuses by the Kuwaiti contractor now rushing to complete the sprawling 592-million-dollar U.S. embassy project in Baghdad, numerous sources have revealed. Justice Department trial attorneys Andrew Kline and Michael J. Frank [...]
Asian Workers Smuggled to Build World’s Largest Embassy
Oct. 17, 2006. CorpWatch, Alternet, Inter Press Service, Asia Times, Counterpunch and others (October 2006). Recipient of Project Censored award and Online News Association fiinalist for investigative journalism. Helped trigger investigations by US Justice [...]
Baghdad Embassy Bonanza
Kuwait Company’s Secret Contract & Low-Wage Labor by David Phinney February 12th, 2006 Work for what is planned to be the largest, most fortified US embassy in the world was quietly awarded last summer to a controversial Kuwait-based construction firm [...]
Private Security Companies Confront Civilian Shootings in Iraq
by DAVID PHINNEY, Special to CorpWatch November 29th, 2005 Wherever Tim Spicer turns up, he carries the kind of baggage that gives the private military business a bad name. An internet video showing private contractors shooting at civilian cars in [...]
Adding Insult to Injury
Injured Halliburton contractors return home to fight battle for medical and disability coverage: CorpWatch (May 2005). This story has legs. It identified early on the unforeseen challenges faced by injured contractors coming home from Iraq. As a result, many producers [...]
Contract Quagmire in Iraq
by David Phinney April 27th, 2005 Rioting and threats of work stoppages at critical transportation hubs needed to rebuild the war-torn Iraq have erupted in recent months following payment disputes between contractors originally hired by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority and Iraqi officials skeptical of the billings and the CPA's [...]
Spending Iraqi Money
How the Pentagon and CPA spent seized Iraqi assets.... (more...)
