KBR: Pure Evil
Is there any company that better personifies pure evil than KBR, the largest and most nefarious defense contractor in Iraq? Some might suggest Monsanto, Exxon, Altria (Phillip Morris), or Wal-Mart. And those are all good choices, but KBR (which stands for Kellogg, Brown & Root) wins the prize in my book. How evil is KBR? Too evil for Halliburton – they sold off their stake in former subsidiary KBR in late 2006/early 2007. Think about that – Halliburton was embarassed to be associated with them. Halliburton was ashamed to have owned them. Halliburton! That’s like Pauly Shore saying, “Oh, dude, I don’t wanna do a movie with Carrot Top. That guy is an unfunny, talentless moron.” Sorry, every time I try to think of a metaphor for pure evil, I immediately think of Carrot Top. He looks like Pennywise the Clown.
Sorry, where was I? Oh yes, KBR. Time for one of my patented numbered lists of facts.
- This week, we learn that KBR is being sued by American soldiers (of the Indiana National Guard) for knowingly exposing them to notorious carcinogen sodium dichromate – and that’s not the curable kind of cancer. When they began experiencing “chrome nose” (nasal bleeding), the telltale sign of sodium dichromate exposure, KBR told them that it must be the “dry desert air” and that they were “allergic to sand” despite knowing that civilian workers had already been testing positive for elevated chromium levels in their blood.
- Another American soldier from Georgia is suing KBR this week for serving the largest US base in Iraq (30,000 people including both soldiers and civilians) spoiled food and contaminated water, while burning medical waste in an open-air burn pit, filling the base with noxious fumes. They shipped ice in mortuary trucks that “still had traces of body fluids and putrefied remains in them when they were loaded with ice. This ice was served to U.S. forces.” They gave soldiers salmonella poisoning by giving them food that was over a year past its expiration date, even after they complained about the expiration to KBR management. “On one occasion, he witnessed a wild dog running around base with a human arm in its mouth. The human arm had been dumped on the open air burn pit by KBR.”
- Also this week, we learn that a KBR subcontractor has been confining 1000 Asian men in a dirty, windowless warehouse for three months without money or a place to work. These men paid over $2,000 to be transported to Iraq, and were promised big salaries to send back home to their wives and children; instead, they have nothing to send, and their families are impoverished. “The conditions in which the men have been held appear to violate guidelines the US military handed down in 2006 that urged contractors to deter human trafficking to the war zone by shunning recruiters that charged excessive fees. ” The quarters violate US military guidelines on “minimum acceptable” living spaces. After being exposed, the company promised to send the men home and pay them back salaries, which will most certainly be charged to the American taxpayer even though the men were not given the opportunity to do any work whatsoever during their three months.
And that’s just this week’s news. What else is there? How about electrocuting American soldiers via faulty wiring (after ignoring repeated warnings), human trafficking, gang rape, and tax evasion via offshore shell companies in the Cayman Islands?
And we’re still giving them contracts.
They are pretty horrible. They represent the war profiteering, incompetence and greed that we’ve come to expect from this administration’s WOT.
Evil incarnate. I would also guess that Cheney and Rumsfeld have made a bunch of bucks off their holdings in KBR. Of course, nothing will be done to bring them to justice.
Bet these guys have “support the troops” magnets on their SUVs.
You’re definitely right about Carrot Top.
You know what would be great?
If a Senator, perhaps one who has made his career being a corporate lackey, decided to go after these creeps and drag them infront of committee after committee in the same way Harrry Truman exposed WWII profiteers and scumbags. That would be awesome.
Jason Don’t hold your breath
I think this song says it quite nicely:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvkDu8o8tMw
(The Suicide Machines – “War Profiteering is Killing Us All”)
I always get Carrot Top confused with the Flying Tomato.
Jason,
Surely there are Senators out there with nothing left to lose. How about it Byrd, Lautenberg or Inouye?
Why does it need to be a Senator with nothing to lose? It seems to me that there is much to gain by taking a good hard look at some of these sole source contracts. And shining some light on the entire government contracting business would be worth alot of effort.
And somebody who was truly interested in downsizing government could start right at the contracting business.
Cassandra,
I totally agree. An ambitious up-and-comer could really make his/her reputation with an investigation. That would take political courage and I don’t think we have very many politicians with political courage anymore.
“Wild dogs in the area raided the burn pit and carried off human remains,” the lawsuit states. “The wild dogs could be seen roaming the base with body parts in their mouths, to the great distress of the U.S. forces.”
I’d be happy with a grandstanding Republican took it up. Anybody who could get this stuff off the blogs and into the mainstream media.
NYT WASHINGTON — The thousands of American contractors in Iraq who have been above Iraqi law since the war began are suddenly facing a new era in which their United States passports will no longer protect them from arrest and imprisonment.
When the Iraqi government ratified an agreement last week setting new terms for a continued American presence in Iraq, private contractors working for the Pentagon faced the inevitability that they would be stripped of their immunity from Iraqi law. That immunity had been granted by the Coalition Provisional Authority before a postwar Iraqi government was established.
Now that the contractors’ legal protection is to lapse, officials in the defense contracting industry are trying to come to grips with how their operations will change in Iraq, how many of their American employees will be sent home, and whether the weak and often corrupt Iraqi judicial system will become an impediment to recruiting Western workers. If it is approved by Iraq’s Presidency Council, as expected, the agreement will go into effect on Jan. 1.
… Nov. 30 article, read more
Don’t forget, we have more contractors in Iraq than our real military.
Don’t forget, also, that WAR was over & WON in May of 2003. This has been an OCCUPATION since that time.
😛
I think I’m going to call Ted Kaufman. He’s got nothing to lose.
tedkaufman@comcast.net
Ughhh, disgusting beyond belief.
The main question is : what, if anything, will the Obama administration do to take down these criminals?
I sincerely hope he nails their balls to a fence post.
X, you are my hero. Thanks for writing this.