Is "slavery" too strong a term for what KBR is just now being told to stop doing to its "contract workers" in Iraq? I don't think so, even though it's not exactly like the US experience with the Peculiar Institution. For one thing these workers are being made to pay for the privilege of being lied to, shipped to places other than where they contracted to work, and then having their passports seized by their "employers" to keep them from either returning home or quitting to work for a more honest outfit. This is a Chicago Tribune exclusive, and some kick-ass journalism to which they have made a long time follow-through committment, so give 'em a click even if you don't have time to read the whole thing. Some excerpts:

The top U.S. commander in Iraq has ordered sweeping changes for privatized military support operations after confirming violations of human-trafficking laws and other abuses by contractors involving possibly thousands of foreign workers on American bases, according to records obtained by the Tribune.

Gen. George Casey ordered that contractors be required by May 1 to return passports that have been illegally confiscated from laborers on U.S. bases after determining that such practices violated U.S. laws against trafficking for forced or coerced labor. Human brokers and subcontractors from South Asia to the Middle East have worked together to import thousands of laborers into Iraq from impoverished countries.
[snip]
Although other firms also have contracts supporting the military in Iraq, the U.S. has outsourced vital support operations to Halliburton subsidiary KBR at an unprecedented scale, at a cost to the U.S. of more than $12 billion as of late last year.

KBR, in turn, has outsourced much of that work to more than 200 subcontractors, many of them based in Middle Eastern nations condemned by the U.S. for failing to stem human trafficking into their own borders or for perpetrating other human rights abuses against foreign workers.

KBR's subcontractors employ an army of workers to dish out food, wash clothes, clean latrines and carry out virtually every other menial task. About 35,000 of the 48,000 people working under the privatization contract last year were "Third Country Nationals," who are non-Americans imported from outside Iraq, KBR has said.
[snip]
All 12 men were subsequently executed by militants in likely the single worst massacre of foreign workers in Iraq since the American-led invasion more than three years ago.

Those workers and others suffered from a chain of exploitation that began in their home countries, where families often assumed huge debts to pay fees demanded by brokers, to Iraq. Even after discovering they'd been deceived, workers felt compelled to head into the war zone, or remain in danger for much longer than they desired, just to pay those debts.

The Tribune also found evidence that subcontractors and brokers routinely seized workers' passports, deceived them about their safety or contract terms and, in at least one case, allegedly tried to force terrified men into Iraq under the threat of cutting off their food and water.
[snip]
Separate records also show that similar allegations had been raised in September 2004 with Joseph Schmitz, who was then the Department of Defense inspector general.

Schmitz did not respond in any detail until nearly a year later, saying in an in Aug. 25, 2005, letter to Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) that there was a "list of corrective measures" ordered by coalition military officials in Iraq following "a preliminary inquiry" into the allegations. The letter did not mention passport seizures or violations of U.S. laws against human trafficking, but said living conditions "required further attention" and that officials were "monitoring the status of corrections" purportedly underway.

Schmitz resigned about two weeks later amid accusations that he stonewalled investigations. He took a job with Blackwater USA, a private security contractor.

I hate these people so very, very much. "Oh, but WE would never do that!" this setup allows Mr. Cheney's Company to say. "This was all the misbehavior of our subcontractors! Bad subcontractors, bad, bad! We will never deal with them again." [Off camera: "Hurry the fuck up with the new paperwork changing the name from International Personnel Movers to Transasia Translocators, woudlja? We got a new check to cut, chop chop!"]

You can tell they're starting to wind this Iraq thing down, to pull the hands out of the cookie jars just as fast as possible now that the lids are being slammed shut. These contract workers will most likely wake up one morning to find that the overseers have disappeared, along with their payrolls and, oh yes, their passports. It's what KBR did to their "subcontractors" in the Katrina District, mostly Mexicans of varying legal status, so they've got the system down pat.