The Iraq gold rush
Asia Times
HOUSTON - They may be shot by a sniper. They may be caught by a roadside bomb. They may be kidnapped. They may be held in captivity in a room in the desert under 55 degrees Celsius in the shade and with no water. They may be beheaded. But they don't care. They keep coming back - up to 500 a week - for more. They want their Iraqi golden job, and they want it now.
As Sunnis in Fallujah and Shi'ites in Najaf keep reminding anyone who bothers to listen, there are no jobs for Iraqis - unemployment is running at 70 percent. But despite the body count - 34 killed, 74 wounded, two missing and counting - there are plenty of jobs for Americans, especially Texans, on the KBR (formerly Kellogg Brown and Root) bandwagon in Iraq. The Halliburton subsidiary, based in downtown Houston like its parent company, is now employing 24,000 people - mostly Americans, but also from 38 other countries - in Iraq and Kuwait.
As many people, and not just the scandal junkies, are aware, KBR was awarded by the administration of President George W Bush a contract worth at least US$5 billion for 10 years in Iraq, for engineering and construction services and the rebuilding of civil infrastructure. If war may be a blessing from heaven for aspiring truck drivers in the heart of Texas, war is certainly a very good business for KBR. A few days ago Halliburton executives confirmed that the oil giant was collecting no less than $1 billion a month for their work in Iraq. This includes US taxpayers being overcharged $61 million for fuel and $24.7 million for meals, apart from a confirmed $6.3 million in bribes. Accusations are still flying: Halliburton has not rebuilt key nodes of Iraq's oil infrastructure and has skimmed Iraqi jobs for away from Iraqis.
The Balkan connection
KBR's - and Halliburton's - success is a key node of the so-called Iron Triangle, the US crossroads connecting business, politics and the military. KBR is the key benefactor of military outsourcing, which means that now the US Army is dependent on KBR in Iraq. KBR started building ships for the US Navy during World War II. It built air strips and prison cells in Vietnam. But the big break came in December 1995. Dick Cheney had been the chief executive officer of parent company Halliburton for only two months. KBR was sent to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo to build two army camps in the middle of two deserted wheat fields. Instead it built two cities, one in Bosnia and one in Kosovo - complete with mail delivery and 24-hour food and laundry. In other words: without KBR, there would be no operating US Army in Bosnia and Kosovo. And the money was great: from 1995-2000, the KBR bill to the US government was more than $2 billion.
KBR's strategic masterpiece is Camp Bondsteel - the largest and most expensive US Army base since Vietnam, still in use today, complete with roads, its own power generators, houses, satellite dishes, a helicopter airfield and of course a Vietnam-style prison. By a fabulous coincidence, Camp Bondsteel is right on the path of the Albanian-Macedonian-Bulgarian Oil (AMBO) Trans-Balkan Pipeline. This key piece of Pipelineistan is supposed to connect the oil-and-gas-rich Caspian Sea with Europe. The feasibility project for AMBO was conducted by none other than KBR.
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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FE14Ak03.html
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