Why Is Criminal War Profiteering KBR Still a DoD Contractor?
Why is KBR still a US Defense Department contractor? The main reason: it was a former subsidiary of Halliburton whose CEO was Dick Cheney. KBR is another of this administration's corporate crony war profiteers raking in profits while committing fraud and other crimes against this country and its taxpayers.
This is a company that provided our troops with dirty water that caused sores and other health problems; spoiled food; electrocuted our troops in the shower with shoddy wiring; tried to avoid paying US taxes through offshoring; some of whose employees were raped and the company tried to cover it up; and a abominable company about which I've written many times.
Here is the latest from the Boston Globe: "US soldiers assigned to guard a crucial part of Iraq's oil infrastructure became ill after exposure to a highly toxic chemical at the plant, witnesses testified at a Democratic Policy Committee hearing yesterday on Capitol Hill.
" 'These soldiers were bleeding from the nose, spitting blood,' said Danny Langford, an equipment technician from Texas brought to work at the Qarmat Ali Water treatment plant in 2003. 'They were sick.'
"Hundreds of American soldiers at this site were contaminated" while guarding the plant, Langford said, including members of the Indiana National Guard.
"Langford is one of nine Americans who accuse KBR, the lead contractor on the Qarmat Ali project and one of the largest defense contractors in Iraq, of knowingly exposing them to sodium dichromate, an orange, sandlike chemical that is a potentially lethal carcinogen. Specialists say even short-term exposure to the chemical can cause cancer, depress an individual's immune system, attack the liver, and cause other ailments.
"Roughly 250 American soldiers were believed to have come in contact with the chemical, according to Defense Department documents. Sodium dichromate is the same substance that poisoned residents in Hinkley, Calif., an incident made famous by the movie "Erin Brockovich" in 2000.
"Langford and his former colleagues have said KBR supervisors initially told them the chemical was a "mild irritant." The company, however, eventually acknowledged that sodium dichromate was a potentially deadly substance and moved to clean up the site."
The US Army claims that there was testing done.
"Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, the Deputy Director for Force Health Protection and Readiness, told the Globe in an interview earlier this year that the samples from the soldiers were brought to the US Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine in Aberdeen, Md., and that 98 percent showed the "normal range" of chromium. Yesterday, Kilpatrick said physical exams on the soldiers showed "no definitive signs or symptoms . . . that would indicate chromium exposure."
However, experts question the validity of the tests.
"Max Costa, chairman of the Department of Environmental Medicine at New York University, told the committee that ordinary blood and urine tests would not have detected heavy levels of sodium dichromate exposure after a few days. He said that the military would have had to conduct a highly specialized red blood cell test within four months of the exposure to determine the soldiers' risk of illness.
"Most people don't get it right," said Costa, after the hearing. "It is not an established test that medical labs normally do."
Note that Defense Dept. officials gave no clarification of whether the needed specialized test were actually done and that the samples "may" have been sent elsewhere.
"It was not clear yesterday whether the more specialized tests were conducted on the soldiers. The Army lab in Aberdeen is not accredited to conduct those tests, but may have sent the samples elsewhere, according to Defense officials familiar with the procedures there.
"' It is almost unbelievable,' the [North Dakota Democrat Bryan Dorgan] senator said during the hearing. 'We know that there has been exposure of workers and soldiers to a deadly chemical, and there has been, in my judgment, lack of accountability by those who caused the exposure and lack of accountability at the Department of Defense, regrettably.' "
What else is new, Senator? However, it is not unbelievable. Under this authoritarian Bush regime that thumbs its nose at Congress, Bushite politicized departments and agencies have tested drugs on returning Iraq and Afghanistan vets without notifying them immediately of possible psychotic side effects; this criminal administration has sent our military into harm's way based on lies, often without the necessary life saving equipment, with horrific consequences, and a still serving US Army general lied to Congress to protect KBR.
The question is, Senator Dorgan, besides this hearing, what are you going to do about these horrendous actions by unregulated, no oversight contractors, a Bush politicized Pentagon, and a criminal administration?
This is a company that provided our troops with dirty water that caused sores and other health problems; spoiled food; electrocuted our troops in the shower with shoddy wiring; tried to avoid paying US taxes through offshoring; some of whose employees were raped and the company tried to cover it up; and a abominable company about which I've written many times.
Here is the latest from the Boston Globe: "US soldiers assigned to guard a crucial part of Iraq's oil infrastructure became ill after exposure to a highly toxic chemical at the plant, witnesses testified at a Democratic Policy Committee hearing yesterday on Capitol Hill.
" 'These soldiers were bleeding from the nose, spitting blood,' said Danny Langford, an equipment technician from Texas brought to work at the Qarmat Ali Water treatment plant in 2003. 'They were sick.'
"Hundreds of American soldiers at this site were contaminated" while guarding the plant, Langford said, including members of the Indiana National Guard.
"Langford is one of nine Americans who accuse KBR, the lead contractor on the Qarmat Ali project and one of the largest defense contractors in Iraq, of knowingly exposing them to sodium dichromate, an orange, sandlike chemical that is a potentially lethal carcinogen. Specialists say even short-term exposure to the chemical can cause cancer, depress an individual's immune system, attack the liver, and cause other ailments.
"Roughly 250 American soldiers were believed to have come in contact with the chemical, according to Defense Department documents. Sodium dichromate is the same substance that poisoned residents in Hinkley, Calif., an incident made famous by the movie "Erin Brockovich" in 2000.
"Langford and his former colleagues have said KBR supervisors initially told them the chemical was a "mild irritant." The company, however, eventually acknowledged that sodium dichromate was a potentially deadly substance and moved to clean up the site."
The US Army claims that there was testing done.
"Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, the Deputy Director for Force Health Protection and Readiness, told the Globe in an interview earlier this year that the samples from the soldiers were brought to the US Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine in Aberdeen, Md., and that 98 percent showed the "normal range" of chromium. Yesterday, Kilpatrick said physical exams on the soldiers showed "no definitive signs or symptoms . . . that would indicate chromium exposure."
However, experts question the validity of the tests.
"Max Costa, chairman of the Department of Environmental Medicine at New York University, told the committee that ordinary blood and urine tests would not have detected heavy levels of sodium dichromate exposure after a few days. He said that the military would have had to conduct a highly specialized red blood cell test within four months of the exposure to determine the soldiers' risk of illness.
"Most people don't get it right," said Costa, after the hearing. "It is not an established test that medical labs normally do."
Note that Defense Dept. officials gave no clarification of whether the needed specialized test were actually done and that the samples "may" have been sent elsewhere.
"It was not clear yesterday whether the more specialized tests were conducted on the soldiers. The Army lab in Aberdeen is not accredited to conduct those tests, but may have sent the samples elsewhere, according to Defense officials familiar with the procedures there.
"' It is almost unbelievable,' the [North Dakota Democrat Bryan Dorgan] senator said during the hearing. 'We know that there has been exposure of workers and soldiers to a deadly chemical, and there has been, in my judgment, lack of accountability by those who caused the exposure and lack of accountability at the Department of Defense, regrettably.' "
What else is new, Senator? However, it is not unbelievable. Under this authoritarian Bush regime that thumbs its nose at Congress, Bushite politicized departments and agencies have tested drugs on returning Iraq and Afghanistan vets without notifying them immediately of possible psychotic side effects; this criminal administration has sent our military into harm's way based on lies, often without the necessary life saving equipment, with horrific consequences, and a still serving US Army general lied to Congress to protect KBR.
The question is, Senator Dorgan, besides this hearing, what are you going to do about these horrendous actions by unregulated, no oversight contractors, a Bush politicized Pentagon, and a criminal administration?
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