KBR workers in Iraq paid 50 cents an hour

[sabra]

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/printer_1066169.php

KBR workers in Iraq paid 50 cents an hour

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- While the United States spends billions on troop support in Iraq, the people serving the meals, scooping the ice cream, and washing the dishes make as little as 50 cents an hour.

The U.S. military has paid Halliburton subsidiary KBR about $12 billion so far for so-called logistics support to U.S. military personnel in Iraq, the largest contract of its kind ever. Around 80,000 troops are served meals at dining facilities every day under the contract -- the other 60,000 or so fend for themselves in field kitchens or by eating military issue \'Meals Ready to Eat.\'

KBR in turn hires that work out entirely to subcontractors whose job it is to recruit, transport, house, feed and pay \'third-country\' nationals to stock, prepare, serve and clean up at the dining facilities at 43 bases across Iraq.

Those workers are recruited from countries with already low wages, where jobs are scarce. And as pressure to keep the logistics contract cost down has increased, subcontractors have moved from country to country in search of cheaper labor markets.

[Canuckistanian]

1. With those wages, they could employ the entire third world

$12 Billion? That could go a long way in eradicating world hunger.
But somehow, I don't think all of that money is going to be seen by the average soldier in Iraq.

Call it a hunch.

[tjwash]

2. In the old days they used to execute war profiteers.

Now they get to make policy.

[Greyskye]

3. This is just so wrong on so many levels

1. Obscene profiteering.
   Safety issues, including:
   
2. Background checks - what if a .50 cent an hour food server drops something nasty into the chili? Talk about an easy vector for bio-terror!
   
3. Have all of these food prep people had TB tests?