Waxman hearing on US embassey in Iraq just starting on cspan1 He is

[rodeodance]

giving a good opening statement of the problems

[seemslikeadream]

1. Thanks

:hi:

[Swamp Rat]

2. You can check in, but you can never check out.

[seemslikeadream]

4. A job AND a home

[MannyGoldstein]

5. Hey Swamp Rat - Your Graphics Are Incredibly Cool

The never cease to provoke and amuse - thanks!

[Swamp Rat]

6. Thanks

Here's a new one:



www.swamp-rat.com

[MannyGoldstein]

7. And Thanks For That! n/t

[seemslikeadream]

3. Foreign Workers Abused at Embassy, Panel Told

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbvDjEuqbvI


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/26/AR2007072601792.html



By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 27, 2007; Page A15

Two American civilian contractors who worked on a massive U.S. Embassy construction project in Baghdad told Congress yesterday that foreign laborers were deceptively recruited and trafficked to Iraq to toil at the site, where they experienced physical abuse and substandard working conditions.

State Department officials disputed the charges, telling a House committee that inspections had not substantiated the worst reported abuses.


The accounts were delivered at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on allegations of waste, fraud and abuse in the construction of a huge new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad at a cost of nearly $600 million. The embassy, slated to be the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world, is being built by a Kuwaiti firm, First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Co., which was awarded the contract after no U.S. company would meet the terms, the committee was told.

First Kuwaiti's labor practices are under investigation by the Justice Department, which is looking into allegations that foreign employees were brought into Iraq under false pretenses and were unable to leave because the company had confiscated their passports.

First Kuwaiti has termed those allegations "ludicrous." The company declined the committee's invitation to testify or provide officials for interviews, said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the oversight committee.