The Washington Post’s Dana Hedgepath reports that KBR, which recently inked a 10-year, $150-billion Pentagon contract to continue giving logistics support in Iraq, has been sued for alleged human trafficking. Agnieska Fryszman, an attorney at a Washington law firm, asserts that 13 Nepali men were kidnapped by a KBR subcontractor in Jordan and then taken to Iraq. The men went to Jordan because they thought they were promised hotel and restaurant jobs in Amman. Insurgents fired at the men as they were entering Iraq, killing 12 of the 13. The lone survivor is back in Nepal.

The chilling allegations sound similar to those made against First Kuwaiti, the contractor in charge of building the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. In that case, citizens from the Philippines went to Dubai for hotel jobs. There, their passports were seized and the laborers were re-routed to Baghad.

With so many third-country nationals in Iraq, the extent of human trafficking is an unknown problem. Now the largest contractor in Iraq must contest tales of its involvement.-MB

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