‘Blog Items’ Archives
Forced Labor in Iraq and State Department Mutiny
Interesting that State Department employees are up in arms about the prospect of being forced to work in Iraq at the new $740-million embassy, aka, "Fort Apache on Steroids": At the same time, the the State Department's own inspector general and trafficking in persons division (along with US news editors) have cast an intensely skeptical eye on [...]
The Mega-Bunker of Baghdad
William Langewiesche takes a look in Vanity Fair. Of course, the project is not on budget or on time. It was originally scheduled to be finished by June 2007 and cost $592-million. The project is now being estimated to cost $740 million and remains under construction.
New Military Support Contract ‘Improperly Awarded’
A new 10-year, $150 billion arrangement for providing logistical support U.S. troops around the world should be reconsidered, according to a lead government agency charged with reviewing federal contract awards. The contracts assigned the work to KBR, Fluor and DynCorp, but the General Accountability Office is challenging the deals with KBR and [...]
Investigators Become Lapdogs?
Surveying the federal government's Inspector General system, an independent practice of checks and balances within the federal government, Rolling Stone suggests that President bush has turned watchdogs into lapdogs: The administration is more interested in turning the watchdogs into lap dogs. Just as he politicized every other facet of government [...]
Private Security Protecting Army General
US Army Brigadier General Jeffrey Dorko http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4075 Q That's okay. Help us understand why senior U.S. military officers, such as General Dorko yesterday, are protected by private security contractors and not U.S. troops. MR. MORRELL: My understanding of that is limited, but let me [...]
Private Soldiers Fuel Fijian Economy
Here's the lead: "On the post-Sept. 11 battlefield, Fiji is marketing for hire its 3,500 active soldiers, 15,000 reservists and more than 20,000 unemployed former troops." According to Bloomberg's A. Craig Copetas, "Fiji is a martial culture with no problem in fashioning a gross domestic product that includes mangoes and mercenaries." Since 1978, [...]
Embassy Contracts under Review
Contracts won by Baghdad embassy builder First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting are "under review," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice revealed during a congressional hearing Thursday. Rice was answering questions from Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., about why the State Department awarded the Baghdad contract to First Kuwaiti in 2005 despite [...]
Just Business: Buying a US Embassy Contractor
An Update: Apparently, the sale of the Baghdad embassy contractor's US partner is a done deal -- or nearly a done deal. (Sorry about the earlier typos... I was typing in the dark in an SUV in the back country.) According to documents: Robert Farah, Paul Jureidini and Robert K. Kelley are the key players to taking control of Grunley Walsh [...]
Baghdad Embassy Contractor and the Lebanese Forces?
Ok. So we know that the Baghdad embassy contractor, First Kuwaiti, is run by Lebanese in Kuwait. And we know that First Kuwaiti's former Washington representative, Robert Farah, has been trying to buy First Kuwaiti's US partner Grunley Walsh, a company that has already landed First Kuwaiti more US embassy work around the world. We also know that [...]
Baghdad Embassy Contractor Wins More US Contracts
Despite allegations of poor construction, lousy and abusive labor practices and missed deadlines for completion, the Kuwaiti contractor building the new $592-million-and-counting US Embassy in Baghdad has been quietly bagging new lucrative contracts to build US diplomatic compounds around the world. In September, First Kuwaiti General Trading and [...]
