by David Phinney
Monday March 18th 2024

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Marking Up The Reconstruction

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 [...]

Escape from Iraq: Filipino Migrant Worker Recounts Nightmare Flight

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 [...]

Forced Labor in Iraq and State Department Mutiny

Forced Labor in Iraq and State Department Mutiny

by David Phinney Nov. 1, 2007 -- 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) [...]

The Mega-Bunker of Baghdad

The Mega-Bunker of Baghdad

by David Phinney Nov. 1, 2007 -- William Langewiesche takes a Johnny-come-lately look in Vanity Fair with something of a jaundiced view. 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 [...]

New Military Support Contract ‘Improperly Awarded’

by David Phinney Nov. 1, 2007 -- 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 [...]

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 Soldiers Fuel Fijian Economy

by David Phinney Oct. 30, 2007 -- 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 [...]

Embassy Contracts under Review

by David Phinney Oct. 26, 2007 -- 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 [...]

Just Business: Buying a US Embassy Contractor

Just Business: Buying a US Embassy Contractor

by David Phinney Oct. 25, 2007 -- 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 [...]

Baghdad Embassy Contractor Wins More US Contracts

by David Phinney Oct. 24, 2007 -- 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 [...]

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