Army plans to reopen meat factory on outskirts of Baghdad

[unhappycamper]

Company D, 2nd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry (Stryker) Regiment soldiers Sgt. Jacob Rogers, 27, of Ennis, Texas (left) and Spc. Shawn Derrick, 21, of Wenatchee, Wash. patrol through stockyards at what used to be Iraq's largest meat-works on Wednesday.


Army plans to reopen meat factory on outskirts of Baghdad
By Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, November 17, 2007


BAGHDAD — A U.S. Army plan to reopen the largest meat works in Iraq could employ 4,000 people, but damage caused by looters means the project will not be easy.

The meat works — in a sprawling complex on the outskirts of Baghdad, about half a mile from the Tigris River — was once owned by one of Saddam Hussein’s sons, Udai.

The complex includes a stockyard, where cattle and sheep were brought from all over Iraq; surrounding pastures, where the animals were fattened; a chicken farm; an abattoir, where the stock was slaughtered; a meat processing plant; packaging and warehouse facilities and a shipping center where products were loaded onto trucks for transport to Baghdad retailers.

Unfortunately, in the chaos that followed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, looters wrecked the factory, smashing windows, ripping out electrical wires and removing or damaging equipment. Today the complex looks similar to the set of a post-apocalyptic action film and the surrounding pastures are overgrown with head- high weeds.

People from outside the neighborhood looted the factory, former meat factory worker Osama Saleh said on Wednesday.

The 25-year-old said he used to make Kubah — an Iraqi meal made of bread and meat. Kubah was packaged and shipped to shops in Baghdad each day, he said.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. just in time to sell soylent green, too!

with all the mass graves that keep popping up. Baghdad still averages 20 corpses on the streets each day.

[enid602]

2. factory

I thought all of Baghdad is a meat factory.