Baghdad Airport Shut Over Pay Spat

[David]

AP


The Baghdad International Airport, the country's only reliable link to the outside world, was closed Friday in an embarrassing pay dispute between the government and a British security company.

The Interior Ministry sent a force to reopen the facility, but withdrew the men after they confronted U.S. soldiers manning a key checkpoint along the airport road.

"We ordered the forces to pull back after American forces were deployed at the first checkpoint on the road. We did not want to create a confrontation," acting Transportation Minister Esmat Amer told The Associated Press.

Brig. Gen. John Basilica Jr., commander of the 256th Brigade Combat Team of the Louisiana National Guard, said security remained "intact" at the airport. His unit, some of which is has already returned to the United States, had been in charge of security along the dangerous airport road.

Otherwise, the U.S. military, in an apparent attempt to play down the ruckus, said it had no information about the pay dispute or Interior Ministry force movements.

This was believed to be the first serious dispute involving a Western contract operation since the U.S.-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussein more than two years ago.

In other developments:


A former American hostage who was rescued near Baghdad, Iraq, is heading home. The military said Roy Hallums left Iraq on Friday on a C-17 transport headed to the U.S.


U.S. and Iraqi forces encircling the northern city of Tal Afar arrested 200 suspected insurgents ? most of them foreign fighters ? in a sweep through a militant-held district, the Iraqi military announced Thursday.


A suicide car bomber detonated his black BMW on Thursday as a private American security convoy passed on its way to the nearby Sadir Hotel, wounding three passers-by. On Friday, a car bomb exploded near the heavily fortified downtown hotel, which is used by private Western security agents and construction workers, killing one hotel guard and wounding three.


Police reported finding 17 unidentified bodies near a farming town south of Baghdad and on its outskirts. Soldiers and police collected 15 of victims on Thursday near Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of the capital. A police official said they had been shot to death. Two more decomposing bodies, blindfolded and handcuffed, were found on the outskirts of Baghdad, near a sewage plant, police said.


An official of the court that will try Saddam Hussein discounted a claim by Iraq's president that the former leader had admitted wrongdoing in a confession to mass killings and other crimes during his rule. The official of the Iraq Special Tribunal, which will put Saddam on trial Oct. 19, said Saddam made a statement last month, but did not confess to criminal activity. The former dictator "boastfully" acknowledged a campaign against the Kurds in 1987-88.

The United States has managed to keep its forces in Iraq ? now at about 140,000 ? to a minimum by hiring out vast amounts of work the military normally would do to outside contractors. Congress has routinely complained that oversight is lax and the U.S. government is regularly overcharged.

Earlier, Amer had said Iraqi officials dispatched Interior Ministry troops because the airport closure was illegal.

"This issue is related to Iraq's sovereignty, and nobody is authorized to close the airport," Amer said.

He said the Cabinet approved sending the force to take over from the London-based Global Strategies Group, which had provided security at the sprawling airport since last year.

Amr said the government had been trying since the first of the year to renegotiate a now-lapsed $4.5 million monthly contract which Global had signed with the defunct U.S. Coalition Provision Authority. The CPA handed sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government in June 2004.

Global said it suspended operations because the Ministry of Transportation ? which owns the airport ? was six months behind in payments. All flights in and out of the capital were suspended, it said.

Giles Morgan, a spokesman for the company, said the ministry "is not currently paying the company for the services it has rendered."

"We're in continuing dialogue and we're hoping it'll be resolved as soon as possible," Morgan said. He declined to answer questions about the specifics of the dispute.

Amer, the acting Transportation minister, said he would remain at the airport and continue meetings with Global officials in an attempt "to reopen it in the coming days." He confirmed that Global had not been paid since contract negotiations resumed about the first of the year.

The company said its workers would continue securing the facility but that other operations were suspended.

Airport officials say about 15 civilian flights use the airport daily for both domestic and international travel. The flights are operated by Iraqi Airways, Royal Jordanian Airlines and three companies operating out of the United Arab Emirates ? Jobotier, Ishtar and Tigris airlines. Airport officials said they did not know how many civilian passengers were using the facility daily.

There is service between Baghdad and Basra, Sulaimaniya and Irbil in Iraq as well as Jordan, Syria and the UAE.

In June, Global suspended airport operations for 48 hours for the same reason.

The company also manages security at the heavily fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad ? home to Iraqi government offices, parliament, and the U.S. Embassy. It has about 1,100 employees in Iraq ? mainly former Nepalese and Fijian soldiers. Five hundred Global workers staff the airport.