Ducky Paredes

“The U.S. embassy is likely to create even greater Iraqi resentment toward the U.S. occupation. While Americans will be living in posh quarters, the citizens of Baghdad are forced to survive with just 5.6 hours of electricity a day.”

by Ducky Paredes

The fortress that the Americans are building beside the Tigris River in Iraq will be the size of Vatican City. It will have its own defense force and self-contained power and water. This is the future American Embassy in Baghdad,
The embassy complex — 21 buildings on 104 acres is taking shape on riverside parkland in the fortified “Green Zone,” just east of a former palace of Saddam Hussein’s, and across the road from the building where the ex-dictator was on trial before he was sentenced to die.
The architectural firm designing the embassy, Berger Define Yaeger, has posted the designs for the colossus on its website.
The complex “will include two office buildings, one of them designed for future use as a school, six apartment buildings, a gym, a pool, a food court and its own power generation and water-treatment plants.”
The U.S. embassy is likely to create even greater Iraqi resentment toward the U.S. occupation. While Americans will be living in posh quarters, the citizens of Baghdad are forced to survive with just 5.6 hours of electricity a day. The residence of the U.S. ambassador to Iraq will be 16,000 square feet. The deputy chief of mission in Iraq will have a “cozy cottage” measuring 9,500 square feet.
The 5,500 Americans and Iraqis working at the embassy, almost half listed as security, are far more numerous than at any other U.S. mission worldwide.
Iraq’s interim government transferred the land to U.S. ownership in October 2004, under an agreement whose terms were not disclosed.
“Embassy Baghdad” will dwarf U.S. embassies elsewhere, projects that typically cover 10 acres. The embassy’s 104 acres is six times larger than the United Nations compound in New York, and two-thirds the acreage of Washington’s National Mall.
Original cost estimates ranged over $1 billion, but Congress appropriated only $592 million in the emergency Iraq budget adopted last year. Most has gone to a Kuwait builder, First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting Company, with the rest awarded to six contractors working on the project’s “classified” portion — the actual embassy offices.
As part of the work force in this embassy were 51 Pinoys who thought they were going to Dubai but ended up going to Iraq without passports or Ids. The US Congress is currently investigating this project.
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Among the witnesses at the congressional investigation is one John Owens, whose specialty is architectural finishing.
This is part of Owens’ testimony to the US Congress: “I would like to now take a moment and describe conditions on the site in more detail. This was a ‘man camp’—by nature not the most pleasant of places to be—and yet conditions there were deplorable, beyond what even a workingman should tolerate. Foreign workers were packed in the trailers tight. There was insufficient equipment and basic needs—stuff like shoes and gloves. If a construction worker needed a new pair of shoes, he was told ‘No, do with what you have’ by First Kuwaiti managers.
“The contract for these workers said they had to work 12 hours a day 7 days a week, with some time off on Friday for prayers. A few people from India told me they were making $240 a month. A guy from Sierra Leone got paid $300 a month. A Pakistani worker told me he got $900 a month, but that he had to pay additional costs for their work permits and visas, and that all told he was making about $300 a month after those costs.
“Many of the workers were verbally and physically abused, intimidated, and had their salary docked for as much as three days pay for reasons such as being five minutes late, sitting down on the job, and other crazy stuff. Because I was the only American on-site working for First Kuwaiti, many of the workers thought I had the power to help them with their problems. Workers often came to me and told me they hadn’t been paid overtime or that their salary had been shorted. They also came to me with their health problems, asking me if I could go off site and get them some medication.”
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“I also want to touch briefly on the issue of human trafficking. I believe I witnessed it. When flying from Kuwait to Baghdad, I saw a bunch of workers with tickets to Dubai. Mine was the only one that said Baghdad. When I asked the First Kuwaiti manager, he said—“Shhh, don’t say anything. If Kuwaiti customs knows they’re going to Iraq, they won’t let them on the plane.”
“When we landed, these workers were taken away in busses. There was nobody manning the customs station at the airport in Baghdad—I just walked through on my way back to the Green Zone.”
“I think the American people might understand what was going through my head over there as I watched this abusive and unprofessional practice taking place. I kept thinking it would get better. I kept telling myself that it would get better, and after more time had passed and things didn’t get any better, I felt so bad all the time and I realized it was time to resign and speak up for those who do not have a voice.”
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Are Owens and Mayberry telling the truth? According to First Kuwaiti, Owens’ and Mayberry’s claims are unsubstantiated. It said it had fired Mayberry when he couldn’t prove he was a medic, and that Owens had filed a lawsuit against the company that was pending.
”The implication that First Kuwaiti laborers are brought into Iraq against their will and are kept there to work against their will is absolutely ludicrous,” it said.
The State Department’s inspector general, Howard Krongard, said that he had received allegations that workers had signed contracts at home to work in Dubai and hadn’t learned that they were going to Baghdad until they were in the air and almost there. He said he had also heard other complaints, including some about squalid living conditions.
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Is anyone in our government even concerned about the possibility that Pinoy workers may be working as virtual slaves in the making of the US Embassy in Iraq?
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Readers who missed a column can access www.duckyparedes.com,/blogs. This is updated daily. Your reactions are welcome at duckyparedes@yahoo.com

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hvp (08.05.07)