Gina-Marie CheesemanNew U.S. Embassy in Iraq Delayed
October 8th 2007 21:03
Category: No Category
Foreign policy and trade specialist Susan Epstein stated in a July 2007 report to Congress that the new U.S. embassy building in Iraq is expected to be completed “by the end of the 2007 summer.” An October 7, 2007 Associated Press article reported the building will not be finished for a few more months. The building will be the largest U.S. embassy in the world, and according to a Senate report will be 104 acres with six apartment buildings, two office buildings, residences for the ambassador and his deputy, a gym, pool, club, beauty salon, food court, vehicle-repair center, warehouse, and an emergency exit.
The Congress held hearings late July concerning the new embassy building. A general
foreman with the First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting Company (FKGTC), the construction company building the new embassy, John Owens testified at the hearings. Owens was in Iraq from November 2005 to June 2006. He described the camp, on the embassy site, where the construction workers slept, as “deplorable…foreign workers were packed in the trailers tight. There was insufficient equipment and basic needs—stuff like shoes and gloves.”
FKGTC has never built a U.S. embassy before. The website CorpWatch.org reported that some U.S. contractors who competed for the embassy contract expressed “bewilderment over why the U.S. State Department gave the work to FKGTC.”
Owens said the workers were “verbally and physically abused, intimidated, and had their salary docked for as much as three days pay for reasons such as being five minutes late, sitting down on the job, and other crazy stuff.” According to Owens’ testimony the workers’ contract required them to work 12 hours per day, seven days a week, with only “some time off on Friday for prayers.”
During Owens’ testimony he “touched briefly on…human trafficking,” claiming he believed he “witnessed it.” While flying from Kuwait to Baghdad, he saw a number of workers with plane tickets to Dubai, and noticed his ticket was the only one with “Baghdad” listed as the destination. His First Kuwaiti manager told him, “If Kuwaiti customs knows they’re going to Iraq, they won’t let them on the plane.” When his plane landed in Baghdad the workers “were taken away in buses,” and no one manned “the customs station at the airport in Baghdad.”
Rory Mayberry provided emergency medical services on the construction site of the U.S. embassy. His contract required him to report to First Kuwaiti managers in Kuwait City. After given the particulars of his flight to Baghdad from Kuwait City, he was asked to escort 51 Filipinos to the Kuwaiti airport and “make sure they got on the same flight I was taking to Baghdad.” Mayberry noticed their plane tickets had Dubai listed as their destination and not Baghdad. When he asked his First Kuwaiti manager why, he was told “that because Filipino passports do not allow Filipinos to fly to Iraq, they must be marked as going to Dubai. The First Kuwaiti manager added that I should not tell any of the Filipino they were being taken to Baghdad.”
He later found out the Filipino men thought they were going to work in Dubai hotels, and one of them told him “he was excited to start his new job as a telephone repair man.” The men did not know they were being sent to Baghdad to do construction work. When the men found out their true destination, “all you-know-what broke lose on that airplane.” In response a “security guy working for First Kuwaiti waved an MP-5 in the air...they realized they had no other choice but to go to Baghdad.”
Mayberry made it very clear at the hearing that the men were victims of human trafficking. He mentioned they “had no passports because they were confiscated at the Kuwait airport,” and when the plane landed in Baghdad “they were loaded into buses and taken away.” He later found out “they were being smuggled into the Green Zone” without passports or identification of any kind. According to Mayberry, “They were being smuggled in past U.S. security forces.” He noted that he had a trailer to himself on the construction site, while they were “packed 25 to 30 in a trailer, and every day they went out to work on the construction of the embassy without the proper safety equipment.”
Mayberry called the State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard’s report “not worth the paper it’s printed on. This is a cover-up.” Krongard’s report about his visit to the construction workers camp in Baghdad stated that he did not find any evidence of “trafficking in persons violations or human rights abuses.”
The Director and Chief Operating Officer for OBO, Charles Williams, said, “I am pleased to report…that the project is on schedule and on budget.” Patrick Kennedy, the Director of the Office of Management Policy in the State Department, said, “There were problems, but they are problems that First Kuwaiti is fixing as part of the process of accepting the guard camp.”
The Congress held hearings late July concerning the new embassy building. A general
foreman with the First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting Company (FKGTC), the construction company building the new embassy, John Owens testified at the hearings. Owens was in Iraq from November 2005 to June 2006. He described the camp, on the embassy site, where the construction workers slept, as “deplorable…foreign workers were packed in the trailers tight. There was insufficient equipment and basic needs—stuff like shoes and gloves.”
FKGTC has never built a U.S. embassy before. The website CorpWatch.org reported that some U.S. contractors who competed for the embassy contract expressed “bewilderment over why the U.S. State Department gave the work to FKGTC.”
Owens said the workers were “verbally and physically abused, intimidated, and had their salary docked for as much as three days pay for reasons such as being five minutes late, sitting down on the job, and other crazy stuff.” According to Owens’ testimony the workers’ contract required them to work 12 hours per day, seven days a week, with only “some time off on Friday for prayers.”
During Owens’ testimony he “touched briefly on…human trafficking,” claiming he believed he “witnessed it.” While flying from Kuwait to Baghdad, he saw a number of workers with plane tickets to Dubai, and noticed his ticket was the only one with “Baghdad” listed as the destination. His First Kuwaiti manager told him, “If Kuwaiti customs knows they’re going to Iraq, they won’t let them on the plane.” When his plane landed in Baghdad the workers “were taken away in buses,” and no one manned “the customs station at the airport in Baghdad.”
Rory Mayberry provided emergency medical services on the construction site of the U.S. embassy. His contract required him to report to First Kuwaiti managers in Kuwait City. After given the particulars of his flight to Baghdad from Kuwait City, he was asked to escort 51 Filipinos to the Kuwaiti airport and “make sure they got on the same flight I was taking to Baghdad.” Mayberry noticed their plane tickets had Dubai listed as their destination and not Baghdad. When he asked his First Kuwaiti manager why, he was told “that because Filipino passports do not allow Filipinos to fly to Iraq, they must be marked as going to Dubai. The First Kuwaiti manager added that I should not tell any of the Filipino they were being taken to Baghdad.”
He later found out the Filipino men thought they were going to work in Dubai hotels, and one of them told him “he was excited to start his new job as a telephone repair man.” The men did not know they were being sent to Baghdad to do construction work. When the men found out their true destination, “all you-know-what broke lose on that airplane.” In response a “security guy working for First Kuwaiti waved an MP-5 in the air...they realized they had no other choice but to go to Baghdad.”
Mayberry made it very clear at the hearing that the men were victims of human trafficking. He mentioned they “had no passports because they were confiscated at the Kuwait airport,” and when the plane landed in Baghdad “they were loaded into buses and taken away.” He later found out “they were being smuggled into the Green Zone” without passports or identification of any kind. According to Mayberry, “They were being smuggled in past U.S. security forces.” He noted that he had a trailer to himself on the construction site, while they were “packed 25 to 30 in a trailer, and every day they went out to work on the construction of the embassy without the proper safety equipment.”
Mayberry called the State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard’s report “not worth the paper it’s printed on. This is a cover-up.” Krongard’s report about his visit to the construction workers camp in Baghdad stated that he did not find any evidence of “trafficking in persons violations or human rights abuses.”
The Director and Chief Operating Officer for OBO, Charles Williams, said, “I am pleased to report…that the project is on schedule and on budget.” Patrick Kennedy, the Director of the Office of Management Policy in the State Department, said, “There were problems, but they are problems that First Kuwaiti is fixing as part of the process of accepting the guard camp.”
Baghdad airport and green zone
| 37 |
| Vote |
Subscribe to this blog
