Who is Zapata?
Zapata Engineering began its work in Iraq on September 30, 2003 as one of five companies originally hired under a $200 million contract to supervise the destruction and storage of U.S military ammunition worldwide. Under a new contract, awarded on April 16, 2004 by the Army Corps of Engineers, a $43.8 million task order sent Zapata to Iraq to manage captured enemy ammunition(CEA). Some would be destroyed, while the rest was put away for safe-keeping until a new Iraq government could take charge. The original assignment included $2.8 million for the salaries of a five person team, which broke down to remarkably high and controversial salaries.While $850,000 was earmarked for the company’s overhead, insurance and profit costs, a single liaison officer in Iraq was budgeted for a $350,000 salary. The other four employees, identified as project managers, were budgeted for annual pay of $275,000, according to a recent Winston-Salem Journal report . A similar investigation by the Center for P
