The U.S. has been having a darned hard time with reconstruction projects in Iraq. Halliburton and its subsidiaries could not finish a project even with cost-overruns, profiteering and nonexistent deadlines. But what can you expect in an oil-rich nation without consistent electricity and basic services?
A major symbol of the occupation is the building of the U.S. Embassy, heavily fortified and massive, in the middle of the Green Zone. That reconstruction job will be done on time and within budget parameters. All it took was the use of slave labor.
According to an article in the 6/7/07 Wall Street Journal, First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting Company, the company charged with building the embassy, has engaged in human trafficking, tricking foreign workers into believing they were going to work in another country when instead they were being routed to Baghdad, whereupon their passports were seized and they were not allowed to leave. In essence, the only way the U.S. could complete a reconstruction job in Iraq was to use slave labor:
People familiar with the First Kuwaiti situation said an American who formerly worked for the company in Baghdad, John Owens, told [Justice Department] prosecutors that dozens of Pakistani and West African employees on a First Kuwaiti charter flight from Kuwait to Baghdad received boarding passes that wrongly indicated the flight was going to Dubai. He also told prosecutors he had personally seen a safe at the construction site in Baghdad containing hundreds of passports belonging to some of the 1,500 foreign workers at the site, the people said.
Under the Bush administration, the U.S. has turned its back on so many Constitutional freedoms, why not repeal the outcome of the Civil War? Reinstitute slavery. It makes for more efficient markets:
The embassy compound is one of the only major U.S.-funded construction projects in Iraq that appears likely to be finished on schedule and within budget. The first State Department personnel are slated to begin moving into the new compound in September, with the remainder settling into the embassy by the end of the year.
Your tax dollars at work:
According to the company's web site, First Kuwaiti is a privately owned company founded in 1996, with annual revenue topping $1 billion--most of it from U.S.-funded projects and subcontracts in the Mideast.
You may not agree with The Wall Street Journal's editorials, but their news reporting is pretty good. It's unfortunate that Murdoch will put his grimy paws all over it.