A peek behind the walls of 'Fortress US'

First Kuwaiti is the exception. Brutal and inhumane, he said. "I've never seen a project more f---ed up. Every US labor law was broken."

And it was all happening smack in the middle of the US-controlled Green Zone, he said - right under the nose of the State Department that had quietly awarded the controversial embassy contract.

Owen also complained of poor sanitation, squalid living conditions and medical malpractice in the labor camps where several thousand low-paid migrant workers lived. Those workers, recruited on the global labor market from the Philippines, India, Pakistan and other poor South Asian countries, earned as little as $10-$30 a day. As with many US-funded contractors, First Kuwaiti prefers importing labor because it views Iraqi workers as a security headache not worth the trouble.

Some contractors, many working as subcontractors to Halliburton in Iraq, were found to be using deceptive, bait-and-switch hiring practices and charging recruiting fees that indebted low-paid migrant workers for many months or even years to their employers. Contractors were also accused of providing substandard, crowded sleeping quarters, serving poor food and circumventing Iraqi immigration procedures.

All the workers had their passports taken away by First Kuwaiti," Mayberry claimed, and while he knew the plane was bound for Baghdad, he's not so sure the others were aware of their destination. The Asian laborers began asking questions about why they were flying north and the jet wasn't flying east over the ocean, he said. "I think they thought they were going to work in Dubai."

Owen had already been working at the embassy site since late November when Mayberry arrived. The two never crossed paths, but both share similar complaints about management of the project and poor treatment of the laborers that, at times, numbered as many as 2,500. Most are from the Philippines, India and Pakistan. Others are from Egypt and Turkey.

But scratching the surface is the only view yet available of what may be the most lasting monument to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. As of now, only a handful of authorized State Department managers and contractors, along with First Kuwaiti workers and contractors, are officially allowed inside the project's walls. No journalist has ever been allowed access to the sprawling 42-hectare site with towering construction cranes raising their necks along the skyline.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060703/howlBush's Baghdad Palace

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