BRIAN BRADY
WESTMINSTER EDITOR
THE MULTIBILLION-pound project to build Britain’s biggest ever warships will be placed under the control of controversial American military firm Halliburton, under an extraordinary deal to be announced this week.
The Ministry of Defence is expected to confirm that the controversial firm, closely linked to US vice-president Dick Cheney, will be installed to manage the construction of the two "super-carriers", in a move that will have far-reaching implications for Scottish shipbuilding. <snip>
The unique demand effectively guarantees the future of up to 1,000 jobs at the Rosyth yard, which had been hoping to clinch the lucrative work of fitting the component parts of the ships together, after the modules have been produced at yards across the UK.
Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton, had been planning to assemble the 60,000-tonne ships at Nigg, on the north-east coast of Scotland, where it has an offshore oil platform yard. <snip>
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