First, the blokes from Armor Group of London are...mercenaries. They can do what they wish and the U.S. will not (and cannot, if you believe the Bush administration) prosecute them for their crimes because the infractions occur outside the U.S. I have little sympathy in my heart for these dead highly-paid mercenaries in Iraq.
But who were they guarding? They were doing security for
Environmental Chemical Corp of Lakewood, Colorado.
Oh, well that's interesting. But what exactly does "Environmental Chemical Corp" do? That name sounds, you know,
environmentally conscious, doesn't it?
Well, they do "reconstruction" and "cleanup". I put those words in quotes because they typically take the money and then subcontract out the work to
whomever as Lisa Meyers found out in her article
Is Katrina cleanup a fleecing of America? Their contract in the
U.S. after Katrina alone is worth $500 million to $1 billion.
A little more information on how that subcontracting works, from the same article by Lisa Meyers linked above:
Here's an example of how it worked: The Ashbritt company was paid $23 for every cubic yard of debris it removed. It in turn hired C&B Enterprises, which was paid $9 per cubic yard. That company hired Amlee Transportation, which was paid $8 per cubic yard. Amlee hired Chris Hessler Inc, which received $7 per cubic yard. Hessler, in turn, hired Les Nirdlinger, a debris hauler from New Jersey, who was paid $3 per cubic yard.
Environmental Chemical Corp. also does
"work" in Iraq, gofigure. This is a bit more lucrative- their payoff is close to $1.5Bln(from link in previous sentence):
Environmental Chemical, founded in 1985, also is operating in Iraq under federal contracts. Its work there, which eventually could result in contracts worth up to $1.475 billion, involves rebuilding utilities, schools and other government buildings, and cleaning up unexploded weapons.
The award of the cleanup contracts came as the pace of federal spending for Katrina continues to eat up billions of dollars. In a weekly report to the House Appropriations Committee on Friday, the federal government said it had spent about $17 billion of the total of $69 billion available for Katrina relief.
They're being
criticized for the "work" they do in Iraq as well:
--snip--
But already, a former Project and Contracting Office employee, Mohammed al-Amir, has complained that some work done on schools was substandard.
Aside from poor workmanship, some of the work was completely unnecessary, he told IRIN. Al-Amir took pictures of many of the schools in southern Iraq where work has taken place to try to document his claims.
"It's all a fraud. Everywhere you go, there is fraud and corruption," al-Amir claimed.
In some cases, subcontractors took pictures of schools where repair work was done last autumn and presented them as if they had done new work, he said.
In one "before" and "after" document al-Amir said he took from the Project and Contracting Office, photos side by side have the names of different schools in them.
In other cases, subcontractors repainted buildings that had already received a fresh coat of paint last autumn. Floor tiles were pulled up and replaced at one school. At another one, one foot of brick fencing was added to a wall that was already at least six feet high, according to al-Amir and the pictures he took.
"This will cost millions of US taxpayers' dollars if they keep entering schools that are already fixed and putting the money in their pockets instead," al-Amir said.
Environmental Chemical Corp. official Rick Ebel said the company is looking into al-Amir's claims. But when asked if he thought subcontractors had committed intentional fraud, Ebel said, "I don't think so at all, but we have initiated a formal process in the schools he is talking about to address these issues."
--snip--
Just a quick peek into the currents beneath the surface on
one news story on
one day during the Bush Regime.
"It's all a fraud. Everywhere you go, there is fraud and corruption"You got that right.
PB
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