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.