Airborne Combat Engineer

KBR (subsidiary of Halliburton) is hiring

1245Z SUN 18JUL04. Halliburton/KBR

Want to make some quick cash? Not afraid of losing your head, or your entire body? Work in Iraq. Check out the opportunities at KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton.

The pay is GOOD. But you'll have to smuggle in alcoholic beverages if you drink, and there's little to do for entertainment. Consider taking up chess.

KBR is actively advertising in papers across the country. The Atlanta J-C has a small ad which gives no company name, only a URL with "kbr" in it.

All kidding aside, it's a great opportunity for anyone suffering from the great depression Long John WAS talking about, or the worst of the "two Americans" Little John is again talking about.

And we've still got over 17 BILLION $ (that's a lot of mullah, even in government terms) to spend rebuilding Iraq (spending has been slowed due to insecurity as well as red tape), so there's plenty of work left.

IGC demands control of oil after sovereignty?

WED 19MAY04. Al Jazeera.

According to Al Jazeera (which means this report may be badly distorted) ...

Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council (IGC) is sending a delegation to the United Nations on Wednesday, to demand greater power in a planned handover of "sovereignty" on 30 June.

The Iraqi delegation will ask the UN to grant Iraqis full authority on Iraqi oil revenues. Iraq used to export 3.2 million barrels a day, compared to the current 1.8 million.

Iraq still owes about $280 billion in reparations for Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, a vast sum compared to the $9 billion its ravaged oil industry has earned since the US-led invasion in March last year. Iraq has paid $20 billion throughout the 13-year US-UK inspired UN sanctions

The US & UK press is not saying anything about this, that I can see.

Next time, let's invade a country with oil

THU 13MAY04. US News. Matthew Benjamin. "Scary pump prices."

The average price of gasoline should peak around $2.03 per gallon in June, according to a report released this week by the Department of Energy. The average price over the course of the summer driving season, which lasts from April through September, will be $1.94.

If we invaded Iraq for the oil, as some like to think, the strategy obviously hasn't paid off yet.

Attacks in Iraq and Saudi Arabia drive up oil prices

WED 12MAY04. NY Times. Neela Banerjee.

The price of crude oil surpassed $40 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday. Attacks on oil facilities in Iraq and Saudi Arabia in recent weeks have largely been responsible for driving up the price, industry experts said.

Prices have jumped 9.9 percent since April 24, when suicide bombers made a failed attack on a critical Iraqi offshore oil terminal. A week later, terrorists killed foreign and Saudi workers inside Saudi Arabia's Yanbu oil hub. Over the weekend, insurgents in Iraq damaged an important pipeline that carries oil to the southern port city of Basra. That attack and another oil pipeline shutdown have kept about 400,000 barrels a day from reaching market.

New highway in Afghanistan

Click for larger image
(U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Joe Belcher - published at the CentCom page)

Delegates from the Constitutional Loya Jirga disembark a CH-47 Chinook helicopter which landed on the newly completed "Ring Road" on Dec. 16, 2003. The delegates were arriving to participate in a ceremony marking the dedication of the first phase of the highway project, a five hundred kilometer section, linking Kabul with Khandahar.

The $270 million, 300-mile project (funded mostly by the US) cuts the journey between the nation's two most important cities from 17 hours to five. One-third of the the population lives within 30 miles of the highway.

Looks like a good US highway, doesn't it?

The bad news is that it's still dangerous, because of threats from bandits and resurgent Taliban militia. The opening ceremony was heavily guarded by U.S. forces and Afghan militamen.