Without salaries, they refused to start cleaning the 12-story-high grain silos--a crucial step to receive large amounts of humanitarian aid.

FORBES: On The Cover/Top Stories

Believe it or not, the cleaning must be sufficiently scrupulous so as to ensure that not a single grain of desert sand is transported out of the Middle East, lest it carry bacteria or diseases back to U.S. shores.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Dunkirk in the desert