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July 29, 2005
Questions Under Investigation
From: dcphinney
Sent: Friday, July 29, 2005 9:40 AM
To:....'(Army Field Support Command)
Subject: LOGCAP subcontractors
(......),
I am working on a possible story for CorpWatch regarding LOGCAP subcontractors and the employment of third country nationals who are largely recruited from India, the Philippines, Pakistan, Turkey, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
My questions follow this background based on interviews this week:
A number of sources -- former KBR employees and supervisors who recently worked in Iraq -- have told me that several Kuwaiti firms subcontracting under LOGCAP rely on third country nationals for their laborers in Iraq.
These sources claim the subcontracting companies, notably First Kuwaiti Trading and Prime Projects International, have practiced poor labor standards that include false recruitment, enforced job retainment in Iraq, inadequate emergency medical care, poor work safety standards, crowded living quarters and bad food.
These companies are also believed by these sources to lack insurance for disability or heath of their third country nationals and offer no paid time off for illness or injury.
All of these allegations take place in partnership with the much better equipped and higher-paid KBR/Service Employees International, Inc. staff who are often supervising these workers -- specifically First Kuwati at Camp Speicher and Prime Projects at Camp Victory, Camp Anaconda and Camp Diamondback.
Additionally, I am told of several instances where KBR employees and their supervisors intervened on behalf of these third country nationals (TCNs) working for subcontractors when TCNs needed medical attention and or were owed backpay. One former KBR employee claims to have fed TCN work crews with military MREs because the food that First Kuwaiti served was unacceptable.
I also am told that there have been numerous "sick outs" and other protests over these working conditions. Some have not been reported. One instance is said to have involved several protests sometime around
October 2004 and January 2005 by hundreds of TCNs at Camp Speicher who had not been paid by First Kuwaiti for three months or more. These protests are said to have been settled and averted only after KBR provided money for the money owed.
One media organization reporting on a labor dispute in May at Camp Cook claimed that 300 Filipinos under contract with Prime Projects International went on strike after complaining about working conditions, including work hours, working conditions and lack of protection from the heat and cold. The dispute reported was temporarily settled after intervention from the Filipino Department of Foreign Affairs.
I am interested in knowing the Army's perspective of these allegations and events, including:
-- How does the Army view the working and salary conditions of third country nationals working for subcontractors in support of LOGCAP?
-- Is the Army aware of such allegations about working conditions for TCNs?
-- Is the Army aware of TCN labor disputes, and if so, how frequent are they? Have they affected the performance of LOGCAP?
-- What are the "flow down" contractual obligations of foreign subcontractors working under the LOGCAP regarding health and safety of third country nationals working for foreign subcontractors?
-- What health, safety, housing, feeding, medical and insurance requirements does the Army require of foreign subcontractors under LOGCAP to provide to their employees working in Iraq?
-- What measures has the Army taken if any above health, safety, housing, feeding, medical and insurance requirements are violated?
-- Approximately how many employees does First Kuwaiti provide under LOGCAP in Iraq and Kuwait? How many does Prime Projects International provide? What camps are they subcontracted? What sort of services are provided by both companies to KBR and what is the contract value?
-- Has there been or is there now a policy regarding the employment of Iraqi workers under LOGCAP and LOGCAP subcontractors? (My understanding is that the Army requested that Iraqi workers not be hired).
-- What role has the Army taken in resolving labor disputes among its subcontractors including that at Camp Cook in May.
-- Can you provide media contact info for Prime Projects International and First Kuwaiti?
Thanks,
DAVID PHINNEY
----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Browne, Margaret Ms AFSC
Sent: Friday, August 05, 2005 5:55 PM
To: 'davidphinney@davidphinney.com'
Subject: LOGCAP subcontractors
David,
In response to your correspondence of 29 July 2005 addressing a number of issues involving the use of third country nationals (TCNs) in sub-contracts under our LOGCAP contract. These are serious issues and we are presently investigating the specific incidents you've addressed.
We are concerned about employment conditions for all employees. There are a number of contract clauses outlining health, security, and other life support requirements for sub-contracted entities. You can access the contract at: http://www.afsc.army.mil/gc/files/contract%20san.pdf.
The U.S. Government has privity of contract with the prime contractor, in this case KBRS. The specifics of sub-contractor oversight are usually within the purview of the parties involved; the prime and sub-contracted entities.
There is no general rule prohibiting the hiring of Iraqis; local conditions at individual activities may preclude the practice.
Hope this suffices. Have a good weekend!
Maggie
Margaret A. Browne
U.S. Army Field Support Command
Public Communications
AMSFS-PC
Posted by davidphinney at 05:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 25, 2005
Titan Contractor Says Company Violated Army Contract
A former Titan translator working in Iraq claims to have had an assault rifle strapped to his shoulder while kicking in doors, rounding up suspected insurgents and "shooting and being shot at."
"In January alone I fired between 300 to 500 bullets in self-defense," he tells The San Diego Union-Tribune in an excellent series about the working conditions for Titan workers and other contractors in Iraq.
"What I was doing was in direct violation of Titan's contract with the Army, but everybody knew about it," he says.
Posted by davidphinney at 07:47 PM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2005
Honor and Integrity
George W. Bush's stump speech in the 2000 presidential campaign included the often repeated phrase "You judge a man's character by the company he keeps," before introducing his wife and Dick Cheney.
At the time, Bush was traveling with the use of a corporate jet offered to his campaign by Ken Lay of Enron at greatly reduced prices unlike the energy charges the company became famous for before diving into scandal and bankruptcy. I always thought it was an interesting factoid.
Now we read that Bush's credibility is falling after successfully winning the 2000 election with the pledge to restore "honor and integrity" the White House.
Posted by davidphinney at 03:33 PM | Comments (0)
July 17, 2005
Now , Things are Getting Interesting
"We've secretly replaced the White House press corps with actual reporters," Jon Stewart recently joked.
I don't know about the "secretly", but it does seem the White House wags have found an issue they can now flog after seemingly sleeping at the wheel for the past few years while basking in the access of spoonfed press releases. Serious old-school skepticism over the invasion of Iraq must have been left at the gate before passing through the metal detectors.
Lefty commentators Dan Schorr in The Christian Science Monitor and Frank Rich in The New York Times are both asserting that the flap over Karl Rove's possible tip off to reporters about CIA desk person Valarie Plame's identity is not the issue. The real issue is about if the administration was misleading the nation about its true intentions for invading Iraq.
Posted by davidphinney at 03:49 PM | Comments (0)
July 06, 2005
Halliburton Edges to the $20 Billion Mark
Thank you my dear source in Iraq for sending me the new Halliburton Task order signed in May with a price tag of $4.9 billion.
The Pentagon did it all very quietly, I suppose, because task orders are deemed sort of insignificant, even it it does bring Halliburton's total billings in the War on Terror to almost $20 billion.
Still, it makes a niffty little story. Nobody in the media took note and I postponed publishing it for several weeks while hitting the beaches in Mexico.
Thanks to The Washington Post reporter as well for giving me credit for ushering the story his way. The story went around the world.
Posted by davidphinney at 04:49 AM | Comments (0)
July 03, 2005
Iraq UN envoy says US Marines murdered his cousin
This sounds like a huge blunder, not to mention, atrocity. Then again, it may not be true. Maybe.
Reuters reports July 2 that "Iraq's U.N. ambassador has accused U.S. Marines of shooting to death in cold blood his unarmed 21-year-old cousin in western Iraq and demanded an immediate investigation."
The report continues:
Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie said Marines killed his first cousin's son, Mohammed al-Sumaidaie, an engineering student, during a June 25 raid of his home in Al-Shaikh Hadid, near a U.S. military base at Haditha Dam."All indications point to a killing of an unarmed innocent civilian -- a cold-blooded murder," said Sumaidaie, a Sunni and ally of the United States, on Friday. "The Marines were smiling at each other as they were leaving."
Sumaidaie, in a three-page statement, called for an investigation of the killing, saying outrage over the incident could jeopardize public support for the United States in Iraq.
The U.S. military, in its own statement from Camp Fallujah in Iraq, said the ambassador's charges "roughly correspond to an incident involving coalition forces on that day in that general location."
Perhaps insurgents posing as Marines?
And to think I have just been blathering about good and bad manners among contractors.
Posted by davidphinney at 05:46 AM | Comments (0)
July 02, 2005
Victor Bout Gets the Boot?
Iraqi officials have whittled down the number of air frieght forwarders working in the country from 27 to seven, according to several sources.
Among those told to consider Iraq as a "no fly zone" from now on is Russian arms trafficker Victor Bout, one source said.
The Los Angeles Times reported Dec. 14, 2004, that Bout was then affiliated with several air carriers providing services to FedEx, KBR and other U.S. funded contractors despite being blacklisted by U.S. authorities. Then again, the blacklist didn't carry the kind of punch at the Pentagon that some might expect, The Los Angeles Times reported last year:
Planes linked to Bout's shadowy network continued to fly into Iraq, according to government records and interviews with officials, despite the Treasury Department freezing his assets in July and placing him on a blacklist for allegedly violating international arms sanctions.Largely under the auspices of the Pentagon, U.S. agencies including the Army Corps of Engineers and the Air Force, and the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which governed Iraq until last summer, have allowed their private contractors to do business with the Bout network.
Maybe the Iraqis are doing what the Pentagon apparently declined to do (credit that to the Defense Department's usual "wartime exigencies" spiel, I am sure). Then again, Bout is a creative guy. He pops up in all sorts of disguises, corporate and otherwise.
As for those seven air carriers that continue doing work in Iraq, "business is growing very, very fast," my source said.
Posted by davidphinney at 07:15 PM | Comments (0)
July 01, 2005
Good Manners Pay off in Baghdad
There is a winnowing of security companies taking place among Iraqi officials who are deciding who's in and who's out, according to a former CPA guy who I spoke to recently (and a winnowing of other select industries as well, according to other sources). He credits it to survival of the polite.
Security companies that were rude to local officials and business leaders when the CPA was in full swing -- such as giving the third-degree search and glare to Iraqis with once-and-future political muscle -- are now getting the squeeze and tacit directions out of the country.
Those that were cordial stand to do very well, predicted the former CPA offial, who is now setting up an import-export business.
Keep that in mind if you read the June 30 Fox News story, "Iraq's New War Zone: American vs. American." It may be more of a story about Iraqi officials flexing their own new sense of newly-acquired sovereignty -- and whatever local culture that reflects.
The Fox story largely focuses on Richard Peters, the new manager for Morrison Security (based near Chicago) and his ongoing dispute with Iraqi police and U.S. Army officer Lt. Col. Mike Casey who is responsible for aiding Iraqi officials with enforcing evictions of illegitimate tenants in the International Zone.
Peters attempted to move into the IZ after his company paid $13,000 for an office lease that may or may not have been legitimate.
(Who holds the rights to some real estate is still being sorted out. After the toppling of Saddam's regime and the March 2003 invasion, Coalition forces and their contractors often simply took over apparently-public buildings that met their needs. The tales of the controversial security contractor, Custer Battles, now accused of using Iraqi real estate for their own business advantage may be one of the more vivid accounts. Such business opportunities are now disappearing.)
When I looked into the Morrison Security story last week, Peters told me his company originally was located at BIAP and that it had had no security contracts as yet. Moving from BIAP shortened the dangerous commute to the IZ, which is a better location for drumming up business, he said. All of the major name security companies have offices there.
"I'm doing what it takes to bid on contracts," said Peters, a former manager with Blackwater security and a 20-year veteran with the Navy Seals who says he served in Vietnam, Grenada, Panama and Afghanistan.
I asked if Morrison Security had registered with the Iraqi Ministry of Interior as required under Iraqi law. Peters said no.
"They're putting all this laws in place and I can't keep up with them while I'm out and about," he said. "They don't understand what we're up against here. We're fighting a stinking war."
How does a private security contractor fight a "stinking war" without a contract?
Peters than ranted a bit about all the payoff the local Iraqi police want.
I referred Peters to the Private Security Company Association of Iraq, run by an American and former CPA official who claims to know all the rules and regulations. The association acts as an intermediary between private security outfits and the Ministry of Interior. (But the association head refuses to share any contact information with me about the Interior Ministry because of his concerns about the "safety and security" of ministry officials. That,of course, is a different story.)
Rudeness may be the problem Global Strategies Group now faces with its security agreement at Baghdad International Airport, a.k.a., BIAP.
They frisked the wrong people thinking that coalition forces and the CPA would be calling all the shots for years to come. Some of the employees for the British firm apparently forgot their manners at times and the Iraqi officials now in power have a long memory.
Giles Morgan, Global Risks' communications manager, has always been polite to me -- albeit, certainly oblique about the company's business challenges at BIAP, which led to a two-day shutdown of the airport beginning June 24.
"We're continuing our discussions with the Iraqi Government and hope to resolve any outstanding issues shortly," he told me in a June 29 e-mail. "As soon as I know anything further I will let you know."
I haven't heard Global Risks side on Baghdad etiquette.
As for allegations about baksheesh paving the way for contractors, rude and polite people are equally capable of opening their wallets and showing other forms of hospitality, the former CPA official said.
Those with the competitive edge are the polite ones.
Posted by davidphinney at 05:35 PM | Comments (0)