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.
KBR is now a
lightning-fast, ultra-efficient and ultra-effective
building machine on the "war on terra", as they say in
Texas. The worldwide-infamous Guantanamo "cages" - still
another Vietnam-style prison - were built by KBR. Cost:
$52 million. The US bases in Bagram and Kandahar,
Afghanistan, were built by KBR. Cost: $157 million. If
perpetually infamous Abu Ghraib in Baghdad is ever razed
to the ground, the new prison will certainly be built by
KBR.
None of these operations has been
scandalous - unlike the multibillion-dollar,
non-competitive contract awarded to KBR to repair and
rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure. This has nothing to
do with logistics and field support for the army. At
Houston's wealthy Rice University - where each
neo-Byzantine block oozes more riches than the entire
Almustansariya University in Baghdad, the oldest in the
world - the talk is about the structure of KBR's
contract: the more KBR charges the government - and the
US taxpayer - the more money it makes. For a $2 billion
contract, even with a small margin, this means at least
a $60 million profit.
The gold rush
map The folks lining up at KBR's Houston training
center are not worried about these billions or millions.
They are happy to get off with a few thousand bucks. In
the Iraq gold rush, you sign for a one-year contract -
renewable pending your qualifications and endurance.
Basic salaries are equivalent for comparable jobs in the
US - but become three times as fat because of the
bonuses related to the dangers implied. A health plan
and a $50,000 life insurance is included. The first
$80,000 is tax-free - as long as you remain in Iraq for
at least 330 days. And if you get killed, the
significant other gets half a salary for life.
Who wants these jobs? The great majority are
divorced, have held plenty of jobs before, are used to
living near the desert, must pay outstanding debts and,
in most cases, want to get a shot at saving and maybe
opening their own businesses. There are not many PhD
holders in the bunch. Truck drivers, cooks and housing
managers are in high demand.
The majority of
KBR's workers in Iraq are veterans of the Balkans. But
at least 11,000 first-timers have passed through the
Houston training center, an abandoned department store
not far from Bush International Airport, the last place
they see in the United States before landing at Baghdad
(former Saddam) International, and the place where they
started getting paid.
The gold rush involves
passing a first-step screening - which can be on the
phone or live with one of dozens of KBR traveling
salesmen all across the US. If you have a criminal
record, however minor, you're out, says a black man
trying to work as a security guard who once got a
drunk-driving conviction. Then the successful applicant
is flown to Houston, with board and meals paid, and
spends a week at the training center being drilled
almost as if he were joining the army. He has to pass an
Orwellian concoction called Workplace Attitude
Behavioral Inventory - which basically means he is able
to work in a group in a high-risk situation. John
Watson, the head of recruiting, comments that a lot of
people actually fail this test.
Then the
applicant has to pass a medical exam. He has to become
familiar with KBR's rules on, among other things, ethics
and sexual harassment. And then he has to go nuclear.
This means he has to learn how to put on a gas mask and
protective suit in case those absent nuclear, chemical
and biological weapons allegedly possessed by Saddam
Hussein decide to resurface.
After this low-key
odyssey, supposing you get your Iraqi job and you land
in Baghdad, you get a mobile phone supplied by KBR and a
mini-holiday of 10 days every four months for R&R,
which most people, instead of Dubai or Bangkok, prefer
to spend back home.
One wonders, had more Iraqis
been given similar job opportunities, whether the United
States could have avoided a catastrophic war on both the
Sunni and Shi'ite fronts.
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The Iraq gold
rush
