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Thousands of workers are needed to meet the demands of the unprecedented privatization of military support operations unfolding under the watch of the U.S. Army and KBR, its prime contractor in Iraq. KBR, in turn, KBR, outsources much of the work to lowly-paid workers imported from developing nations.
Robert Hill became concerned about the "mistreatment" of third-country nationals working in Iraq and then chose to walk away from his one-year commitment, saying he felt that speaking out made him a target for repercussions from his superiors.
Lobbyists representing transportation, energy and other special interests dominated panels that advised Louisiana's U.S. senators crafting legislation to rebuild the storm-damaged Gulf Coast, records and interviews show.
The United States has long condemned the practices that are now part of the privatization of the American war effort and which is central to the operations of Halliburton subsidiary KBR, the U.S. military's biggest private contractor in Iraq.
Top officials who managed U.S. reconstruction projects in Iraq have been hired by some of the same big companies that received those contracts and which are now involved in a rush of deals to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina.
Thousands of low-wage Asian laborers are traveling to Iraq to work for U.S. military contractors like First Kuwaiti and Prime Projects International in the hope of sending money home to their families. Trapped and exploited under inhuman conditions, many of them are now fleeing the country to save their lives.
Across the hurricane ravaged Gulf Coast, thousands upon thousands of blue tarps are being nailed to wind-damaged roofs, a visible sign of government assistance.
Construction crews working with TJC Defense, out of Alabama, install a blue tarp on a home in Kenner, Louisiana. Ian McVea, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
The blue sheeting - a godsend to residents whose homes are threatened by rain - is rapidly becoming the largest roofing project in the nation's history.
It isn't coming cheap.
Top army commanders have drawn up a series of extraordinary "countermeasures" to try to stop highly trained soldiers being lured to private military companies.
U.S. defence contractors are riding high these days, buoyed by rising Pentagon spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the high cost of homeland security in the U.S.-declared war on terror.
The fiscal 2006 defence budget is set to climb to 441 billion dollars, an increase of 21 billion dollars over 2005. It envisions an additional 50 billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It looks as if history will judge Mahathir to have been the wiser of the two owls. The U.S. military is enmeshed in a vicious insurgency and there may be no way out - except, in fact, to get out, outright.
The environmental group Greenpeace International says it took the action this morning because British Petroleum's (BP) Northstar Development will fuel global warming and open the Arctic to offshore oil expansion.
In April, Najaf's main maternity hospital received rare good news: an $8 million refurbishment program financed by the United States would begin immediately. But five months and millions of dollars later, the hospital administrators say they have little but frustration to show for it.
A military contractor returning from Iraq was charged yesterday with distributing identity badges that control access to Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone to people not allowed to receive them, including an Iraqi woman he was dating.
CACI International Inc., the Arlington-based defense contractor that attracted controversy when an employee was accused of participating in the Abu Ghraib prison abuses, is getting out of the interrogation business.
Sir Malcolm has been a fierce critic of the war, but an investigation into his financial interests shows his share options in a private security firm are rocketing in value as the company wins new contracts while the insurgency in Iraq continues.