KBR supplied contaminated water to troops.
The AP reports that, between 2004 and 2006, “dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using ‘unmonitored and potentially unsafe‘ water supplied” by KBR. The Pentagon’s internal watchdog said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after from using the discolored, smelly water.
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Different surge altogether. Thanks, Mr. Worst President In History!
March 9th, 2008 at 8:36 am“KBR’s commitment to the safety of all of its employees remains unwavering,”
So US soldiers are acxtually employees of KBR are they? Ah, now the invasion and occupation makes sense!
Of course being “empoyed” by an offshore corporation the soldiers won;t be able to make an workers compensation claims, because KBR doesn’t pay into that.
March 9th, 2008 at 8:44 amdamn my typing! I need another cup of java!
March 9th, 2008 at 8:45 am“KBR’s commitment to the safety of all of its employees remains unwavering
Hmm. Guess that doesn’t include Jamie Leigh Jones and the other KBR female employees who were raped while working for them in Iraq.
March 9th, 2008 at 8:58 amadd that to the list of:
raping female employees >>> check
abandoned and poorly constructed projects >>> check
obscene war-profiteering >>> check
incorporate off-shore to avoid u.s. taxes >>> check
corporate values on full display.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:11 amWhy in the world would KBR reassure us of their good intentions by saying “KBR’s commitment to the safety of all of its employees remains unwaveringâ€? Is that to mean, “only our employees are important — soldiers be damned”?
And they can’t even stand behind THAT statement, according to Jamie Leigh Jones.
I could possibly understand (not condone, but understand) this sloppiness if this was some fly-by-night outfit that submitted the lowest bid. But when this company got the work with NO BID, this outrage really gets the hackles up.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:15 amOh great, the US military is being infiltrated by BlackHusseinWater and soon will turn them all into Muslims.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:17 am“KBR’s commitment to the safety of all of its employees remains unwavering”.
Note equivocation in that sentence. They aren’t COMMITED TO THE SAFETY of its employes, they just have na unwavering commitment REGARDING emplyees saety—which they don’t define.
But this is besides the point. Asked about the safety of the troops they serve, the response is about the safety of their employees.
Q: ‘What’s 2 + 2?”
A: “An apple”
“Good enough! You’ve won a lifetime’s supply of tax-payer dollars!”
March 9th, 2008 at 9:19 amOf course the point is taken about Jamie Leigh Jones and the others. KBR’s unwavering commitment is to disregard the safety of their emplyees if it threatens their profits and ‘tarnishes’ their corporate image.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:23 amUnbelievable. When I was in Navy, all services to naval personnel were performed by other naval personnel. Now I hear that services have been outsourced (cooking, laundry, water supplies, etc…).
This is too much and we can all thank Bush and Cheney. Two chicken hawks who never served a day. What do they care if the troops are poisoned. Their priorities are for the profit of the war machine; not the safety of the troops.
Go Obama; it’s well past time to leave Iraq.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:30 amClean water is one of hallmarks of good society, Neocons and their corporations are the worst folks to intrust that or any other product or measure that is needed for the common good of citizens.
Is this what we have to look forward to corporations doling out water as water as well.
March 9th, 2008 at 11:07 amWe’ve been paying KBR and Halliburton absolutely obscene amounts of money for their services in Iraq — money which could always have been put to good use right here at home — so there’s no way in creation that any halfway rational individual with at least two functioning brain cells to rub together can even plausibly (never mind legitimately) claim that this was the best KBR could do! Someone (maybe a few or even a good many someones) has obviously been cooking the books and skimming off the top — and it doesn’t look as if much has been, is being, or will ever be done to penalize those responsible. “Support the troops”, my backside!! Wouldn’t charging tons of money and then delivering substandard services be considered war profiteering? I won’t even bother asking why those responsible haven’t been arrested or at least fired — because the answer is virtually a foregone conclusion, and I think we all know what it is.
Then again, this is exactly the kind of thing that you get when you allow people to get away with crony politics and no-bid contracts…
March 9th, 2008 at 11:31 amWell, it’s nice to hear that the Pentagon found KBR negligent, but will anyone, anyone at all, be held accountable for this? Will any military personnel be punished? Will any civilians be fired? Will KBR be forced to return at least a portion of our tax money that they were given to perform a function they failed to perform? I would be extremely surprised to learn that the answer to any of these questions is “Yes.”
March 9th, 2008 at 11:38 am” When I was in Navy, all services to naval personnel were performed by other naval personnel.” —carollt
And long has it been so– the cooks and mechanics and launderers are part of the team and DIRECTLY accountable to the rest of the servicepeople. The “contract” is understood by all, not obfuscated by lawyers and middlemen.
If there WERE a sensible rationale for outsourcing, why wouldn’t the DoD at least go directly to competing civilian commercial sources for these services? We all know why.
March 9th, 2008 at 11:39 amHere’s everything anyone needs to know about war profiteering, from a decorated USMC general, written about the US’s ONE-YEAR (ish) involvement in World War One.
http://www.lexrex.com/ enlightened/ articles/ warisaracket.htm
What’s the saying? “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it”.
In this case one could equallly say “Those who study history may choose to repeat it”.
March 9th, 2008 at 11:47 amHey, AP, 2004 called, they want their story back!
Well, it’s a start, you right-wing tools.
March 9th, 2008 at 11:47 amYou can be assured that George Bush’s dark minions will pull out every dirty trick in the book to ensure John McCain’s election, because he knows that a President McCain will obstruct every attempt by a Democratic-controlled Congress to truly investigate the mindboggling corruption, fraud, and incompetence of KBR, Blackwater, and all the other Bush crony donors who’ve make a killing in Iraq. Those investigations would quickly lead to the Bush Oval Office and to whatever fetid underground cave Dick Cheney is hiding in if a President Clinton or Obama were in place to allow a full and fair accounting.
March 9th, 2008 at 11:56 am“Hey, AP, 2004 called, they want their story back!”
Yes, it doesn’t seem like a ” scoop”, does it?
March 9th, 2008 at 11:56 amThis was made public long ago yet today it is all over the news.
It deserves to be brought to public attention again and again but did I miss something that brought this story forward today?
Cheney-supported mercenary, war profiteering company — their CEOs should be tried and imprisoned — along with their main supporter and his puppet in the White House.
March 9th, 2008 at 12:23 pmUnbelievable. When I was in Navy, all services to naval personnel were performed by other naval personnel. Now I hear that services have been outsourced (cooking, laundry, water supplies, etc…).
Comment by carollt — March 9, 2008 @ 9:30 am
It’s best that way, because military personnel take care of their own. KBR isn’t there to provide a service, they’re there to make maximum profit, and in doing so, they’re providing our troops with a Third World existence.
All contractors need to ejected from Iraq and fined the exact amount they’ve been paid to date.
March 9th, 2008 at 12:36 pmWe keep hearing the Republican mantra of how the government is incompetent and how private industry will do the job better and for less money. We see the results of the private sector handling public responsibilties in health care insurance, the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast after Katrina and now in the Iraq War and reconstruction.
In the past, such ineptitude, malfesance and fraud would have raised the hackles of every newspaper editior across the continent. There would have been investigative reports, news articles concerning every contract problem and editorials demanding a reform to the system.
We do not see the call for action today. The newspapers no longer have readership and are under corporate control as is radio, television and cable. GE certainly does not want MSNBC arguing for too much insight into government contracting. The corpocracy wants the public to believe that government and regulations are wrong. The corpocracy, aided by the conservative and right wing religious movement, want people to believe that business is good and moral while people are weak, lazy and immoral. The corpocracy builds the image of the American Dream while assuring themselves that the system will redistribute wealth and opportunity to the elite few.
The individual no longer matters. The Democrats will not be much better than the Republicans. Modern politics requires corporate pimps to allow an individual to be elected. Free speech has been granted to corporate citizens without limit. The individual (unless exceptionally wealthy) can no longer be heard.
Violent revolution will be the only answer. However, with a large number of people already brainwashed into believing that those who question authority because they have suffered at the hands of the corpocracy are nothing more than un-American losers, action will not come until too late. Widespread surveillance and wire tapping programs, draconian laws on terrorism that will also cover domestic unrest, control of internal movement initiated with a million people on the do not fly list and other tactics will quell resistance. Prostest will not be heard. Free speech zones will shunt it from public view. The corporate controlled press will not cover it. It will die shunted aside and forgotten.
Welcome to the new United States of America. It will copy every third world nation with a small economic elite living in luxury while the poorest die in the streets and the rest live in near poverty. Strong police and military organizations will keep the people in line.
March 9th, 2008 at 12:50 pm“When I was in Navy, all services to naval personnel were performed by other naval personnel. Now I hear that services have been outsourced (cooking, laundry, water supplies, etc…).”
Currently deployed active-duty sailor right here and yep - that’s a fact. The way things are going, it seems like the only sailors left on naval bases are the personnel actually assigned to the ships. Everything, from food service to the regional maintenance centers, is going to the civilian sector (who, incidentally, get paid exponentially more than we do each year for the same work…as we get by on raises of $23 a month.).
March 9th, 2008 at 12:59 pm.
AGAIN?
I thought Cheney schooled them that this hurts his stock portfolio.
.
March 9th, 2008 at 1:31 pmhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeIxHQ-lkuM
This is a video of a Halliburton water inspector (for about a week), basically losing it.
March 9th, 2008 at 1:33 pmWell, maybe so, but there were yellow ribbon magentic “support the troops thingys on all those water barrels and tanker trucks, so I don’t see how it’s a bad thing.
- A. Oblivious Righty
March 9th, 2008 at 1:37 pmDoes KBR stand for Korrupt (they can’t spell you know) Bastard RePugniScums?
March 9th, 2008 at 4:20 pmAnd this surprises exactly who?
http://news.yahoo.com/ s/ ap/ 20080306/ ap_on_re_us/ hepatitis_exposure
http://tpzoo.wordpress.com/ 2008/ 03/ 09/ usda-its-none-of-the-publics-business-who-ate-recalled-meat/ #comment-47963
Can’t wait to see the next disaster this admin is going to inflict upon us.
March 9th, 2008 at 6:16 pmDick Cheney- liar, war profiteer, criminal, traitor………oh and 5 time draft dodger and 2 time convicted drunk driver.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:45 pm#6, Miss Molly:
Bid ? Bid ? What’s a Bid ?
March 10th, 2008 at 4:01 pm