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Article

6 Jun 2011

Author:
Sarah Stillman, The New Yorker

The invisible army [Iraq & Afghanistan]

Two women from Fiji…were recruited by a local firm called Meridian Services Agency, which promised them jobs in Dubai. Once they reached Dubai…they were told that they were actually bound for jobs on U.S. military bases in Iraq…[They] were unwitting recruits for the Pentagon’s invisible army: more than seventy thousand cooks, cleaners, construction workers, fast-food clerks, electricians, and beauticians from the world’s poorest countries who service U.S. military logistics contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan...[Many of the] wars’ foreign workers…recount having been robbed of wages, injured without compensation, subjected to sexual assault, and held in conditions resembling…servitude…[refers to KBR, DynCorp, Fluor, Kulak Construction, Najlaa International Catering, Prime Projects International, Gulf Catering, Elite Home Group, Phoenix Logistics]