KBR Was Paid $83 Million in Bonuses for Work That Electrocuted US Soldiers

The Department of Defense paid former Halliburton subsidiary KBR more than $80 million in bonuses for contracts to install electrical wiring in Iraq in 2007-2008. The award payment was for the very work that resulted in the electrocution deaths of US soldiers, according to Department of Defense documents revealed today in a Senate hearing. More than $30 million in bonuses were paid months after the death of Sgt. Ryan Maseth, a highly decorated, 24-year-old Green Beret, whose January 2008 electrocution death has been classified by DoD investigators as a “negligent homicide.” Maseth’s death had originally been labeled an “accident.” All of the bonuses were paid to KBR after DoD investigators had officially expressed concerns about the quality of KBR’s electrical work.

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Obama to Bring More Mercenaries to Afghanistan -- Sound Familiar?

As President Barack Obama begins winding down the Bush war in Iraq, he is building up his own war farther east. We're told that it will be a new, expanded, extra-special American adventure in Afghanistan, involving a vigorous surge strategy to "stabilize" this perpetually unstable land.

What Obama has not mentioned is that, in addition to soldiers and civilians, there is a third surge in his plan: private military contractors. Yes, another privatized army, such as the one in Iraq. There, the Halliburtons, Blackwaters and other war profiteers ran rampant, shortchanging our troops, ripping off taxpayers, killing civilians and doing deep damage to America's good name.

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Miliband Covers Up Abuse Of Staff At British Embassy In Baghdad

David Miliband is criticised by a high-powered Commons committee today over claims that he "washed his hands" of alleged sexual abuse of Iraqi women at the British embassy in Baghdad.

The Foreign Affairs Select Committee demands to know why the Foreign Secretary had left an investigation into the claims to the same US firm that employed those accused of harassment. Amid claims that the firm's probe was inadequate, the MPs conducted their own 10-month investigation into allegations of a culture of sexual harassment and abuse at the British embassy inside the Green Zone in Baghdad.

The allegations, which are denied, were against British men working for KBR, the largest US contractor in Iraq.

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KBR Knowingly Exposed Troops to Toxic Dust

A CBS News investigation has obtained evidence that a subsidiary of Halliburton, the giant energy company formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, knowingly exposed United States soldiers to toxic materials in Iraq.

CBS interviewed Commander James Gentry of the Indiana National Guard, who is dying of a rare form of lung cancer that he believes is the result of "months of inhaling hexavalent chromium" after his battalion was assigned in April 2003 to protect contractors from Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) working in Iraq at a local water plant. Other members of his unit are also suffering from cancers or rashes associated with the toxic chemical, which was all over the plant.

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Halliburton Supplies Rotten Food To US Troops

US military contractor KBR, a former subisidary of Halliburton [read: Dick Cheney — WiC], is facing a number of lawsuits over its activities in Iraq, and elsewhere. KBR is the largest contractor for the United States Army and a top-ten contractor for the US Department of Defense.

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Halliburton Sued for Human Trafficking

Thirteen Nepali men were recruited and held against their will for thirteen months in a human trafficking scheme engineered and perpetrated by Halliburton and its Jordanian contractor, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday in California federal court.The Nepali men, each between the ages of 18 and 27, were allegedly hired as kitchen staff by the then-Halliburton subsidiary KBR and its Jordanian subcontractor, Daoud & Partners. Once they arrived in Jordan, however, their passports were seized and they were dispatched to Iraq.

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Use of Contractors in Iraq Costs Billions, Report Says

WASHINGTON — The United States this year will have spent $100 billion on contractors in Iraq since the invasion in 2003, a milestone that reflects the Bush administration’s unprecedented level of dependence on private firms for help in the war, according to a government report to be released Tuesday.
The report, by the Congressional Budget Office, according to people with knowledge of its contents, will say that one out of every five dollars spent on the war in Iraq has gone to contractors for the United States military and other government agencies, in a war zone where employees of private contractors now outnumber American troops.

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