Bad Water continued -- Dina Rasor
Posted by Dina Rasor
06:00 PM Apr 19, 2006

IAVA and its Follow the Money Project is still hot on the trail of bad water being supplied to our troops in Iraq by KBR. Here is our information page on this problem. We have been receiving letters from troops and their families asking for guidance and NPR aired a show on the problem last Friday. You can still listen to the radio piece by going here and clicking on the story.

We have also found a very interesting medical article where the Navy tested a group of Marines for illnesses during the early part of the war and found that gastrointestinal problems were the most common complaints. We are working with doctors to get a handle on the problem but in the meantime, this article has detailed medical infomration in it that shows the tests and procedures tha the Navy used in making diagnoses. If you are experiencing problems, you may want to show your doctor this article to give him/her some ideas of where to start based on known problems in Iraq. (This article is slow to load so keep trying to get it.)

We are also working with Congress and others to find out how this could happen with KBR and what the consequences should be. We need to hear from you. Your information will remain confidential if you want. Email us at info@iava.org and I will get back to you. We will get to the bottom of this.

KBR's Crappy (literally) Water
Posted by Dina Rasor
09:30 PM Apr 06, 2006

As I mentioned in my March 16th blog entry, KBR has been caught not testing or chlorinating water for the troops in Iraq as they are required by their contract with the Army. This means that thousands of troops in Iraq may have showered with water at bases that contains two times more contaminants than the water taken out of the Euphrates River and other sources. On Friday, the Democratic Policy Committee is having a follow-up hearing that will show that KBR has obfuscated and dodged responsibility for this mess and a Brigade Surgeon in Iraq actually saw illness effects from her base's water.

IAVA's Rich Murphy will also be testifying about the work that our Follow the Money Project is doing to track the new DOD Inspector General's investigation and other investigations and how we are putting reports and information that we have about these investigation on our web site. We want the troops to read for themselves what crap (literally) they may have been exposed to when doing something as simple as taking a shower at a base in Iraq. We have posted at the Follow the Money site an internal KBR report, called the Granger report that shows the lack of oversight and concern from KBR even after they knew that they had a big problem. The report also shows that the problem was not just at Ar Ramadi but was a problem all across Iraq where KBR was suppose to be supplying clean water and testing it.

We have also posted a 1991 DOD report that lists all the health hazards in northern Iraq. The Granger report also lists that anyone using this water could have been exposed to Giardia cysts, Cryptosporidium oocysts and e coli. It is a start for troops to know what they have potentially been exposed to while in Iraq.

We will be posting more information for the troops as we get it. We don't want to alarm the troops but believe that you have the right to know what may be causing unexplained gastrointestinal problems you may have and give you information to help with any treatment.

Clean water is a basic need for all the troops in Iraq and we plan to see this investigation through until we know that the water is safe. You can help us by emailing us and letting us know if you have unexplained gastrointestinal problems or infections after serving in Iraq. Let us know your symptoms, where you were based, when you were in Iraq and if you want us to keep the information confidential. We plan to use this information to help the government track and fix this problem once and for all, with or without help from KBR. Email us at info@iava.org.

SNAFU or lessons not learned
Posted by Dina Rasor
04:30 PM Mar 23, 2006

The General Accountability Office (GAO) just came out with a new report today criticizing and explaining why the Army and the DOD have not been able to upgrade Army truck armor as quickly as was needed. You can read the whole report here. The GAO said that in 1996, after the unfortunate experience in Somalia, the Army recognized that they needed to upgrade their vehicle armor and created an Operational Requirement Document (ORD) to upgrade the armor on major vehicles. The requirement was never fully carried out and few trucks were changed. Then during Bosnia, there was another attempt to upgrade but since there was not a lot of shooting at the troops, the program lay fallow. The report concludes, "Because not all the kits required under the 1996 ORD were developed, the Army went to Iraq with less protective capability than it might otherwise have done." An understated way of saying that, despite the acknowledgment of the truck armor deficit, the Army was not prepared for the war in Iraq.

Finally, in November of 2003, the Army realized that they had a real problem and tried to fix it. The Army awarded contracts to companies to install kits but started and stopped the production several times because of the lack of consistent funding. This caused the price to go up and for delays in getting the uparmored vehicles back to the battlefield. The GAO says that the Army blamed DOD because the Army claimed that they asked for the money and the DOD says that there is no documentation that the Army asked for it. Here the report begins to show two bureaucracies finger pointing at the other but the amazing and concerning thing is that neither the DOD nor the Army could supply the GAO with any documents showing that they were right. Although the GAO says that the DOD and the Army are working to solve the problem and get the program on track, the main point was lost here.

How can you run a military operation and find out what is or is not succeeding without a paper trail to trace? Whether this lack of paper trail was on purpose or not, it benefits the bureaucrat because you cannot follow the money and find out who is responsible for this SNAFU and fix it. Many people in Congress and in other oversight parts of our government are finding that the lack of paper trail with contractors and within the bureaucracy make it very hard to do effective oversight. This GAO report shows the damage from that problem and how it keeps uparmored trucks from getting to the troops.

So what are our lessons learned? There are several. It is not glamorous or career enhancing to worry about logistics and other low tech fixes for the battlefield or the 1996 ORD would have been implemented. It is much more glamorous for officers to be involved with the next whiz bang, high tech, star wars, sexy next generation of helicopters and future robot soldiers. But that is not what the troops need now, in this low tech fight. They need armor. We are also learning from this war that the more chaotic the paper trail on the money and the results of the money, the less responsibility everyone has to take for failing the troops on the battlefield. SNAFUS happen but unless you learn from them and have the political will to stand up to the failures in the system there is one main loser: the troops.

What does $425 million a month buy us? Not clean water.
Posted by Dina Rasor
06:00 PM Mar 16, 2006

What does $425 million a month buy us? Not clean water.

KBR averaged $425 million a month last year for their LOGCAP contract, the contract the Army gave to them to take care of our troops. But for all that money, they did not deliver clean water to the troops.

Several months ago, it was disclosed that KBR had not been testing the water at Camp Ar Ramadi as they were contracted to do, even though the origin of the water was the polluted Euphrates River. The Army and KBR were supposed to make sure that the filtered water from the river met all standards but some of the non-potable water the soldiers were showering with showed 2x the level of contaminants compared to even the river water. A KBR water quality employee, Ben Carter, tried to sound the alarm in March of 2005 to KBR and to alert the military about the potential health problems and was prevented from doing it. So he quit and went public. Today, the AP released a story about a report by Ben Carter's superior that showed that this non-testing and non-chlorination of water was widespread in the entire Iraq Theater. "Countrywide, all camps suffer to some extent from all or some of the deficiencies noted," Wil Granger, Theatre Water Quality Manager in the war zone for Halliburton's KBR subsidiary, wrote in his May 2005 report. Granger went on to say, "This event should be considered a 'near miss' as the consequences of these actions could have been very severe resulting in mass sickness or death," Read the whole story here.

This means thousands of our troops could have been contaminated before May 2005 and even afterwards. KBR and the DOD claim that the water supply is now safe. The American public paid KBR to test the water three times a day and to follow all the Army and OSHA regulations so that our soldiers had safe water to use. I promise that we will, through IAVA's new Follow the Money Project, be following this money to see how this could happen and who is responsible.

But we are the most concerned about the troops. We have been working with sources who know about this problem and we will be setting up an informational site in a few days to help the troops who think they may have been affected by this. We will be looking at what types of pathogens and bacteria that the troops may have been exposed to in Iraq so the troops know what to tell their doctors. We would also like to hear from any soldier that thinks that they might have been affected by this problem. Email us at info@iava.org with your story and let us know where you were based. Keep checking back here for more information on this topic. We want to give you as much information as we can.

Following the Money
Posted by Dina Rasor
05:00 PM Mar 06, 2006

We are spending about five billion dollars a month in Iraq. In a over two years, we have spent the equivalent to half of the 12-year Vietnam War or half of World War I with many fewer men under arms. Over a billion a week is all Rumsfeld asks. And the Congress and American public have willingly voted for this money because, as one general once told me," we need the best for our boys."

But there is a mismatch here. While the DOD is pouring buckets of water through the procurement sponge, only a few drops are reaching some of the troops. Troops will tell you that in the Green Zone or in the bigger camps "around the flagpole," where the brass hangs out, there are fancy facilities run by KBR and other contractors but that if you are deployed outside these zones, you will be hurting for vehicle parts, body armor, food and even drinking water. Even around the flagpole, some troops have told us that they are getting what they don't need but not getting what they do need to fight and win.

Various IAVA veterans tell stories about how the billion a week did not trickle down to them during the war and even months after the war. Perry Jefferies, several months after President Bush landed on the aircraft carrier and declared "mission accomplished," was forced to commandeer the rare shower trucks that came to Camp Caldwell so his hungry and desperate troops could drink the water. Ray Kimball will tell you how he frantically tried to keep his group of helicopters flying, while based at the Baghdad Airport, even though he did not get a single spare part delivered for two months after the war started.

We are hearing from troops who are returning now that there are still big problems with contractors delivering supplies and taking care of the troops. Soldiers are writing letters to Stars and Stripes complaining that they cannot get their vital generators and air conditioners fixed by KBR, yet see frustrated KBR employees standing around. Another big problem is the private security contractors who are losing hearts and minds of the Iraqis while troops patrol the streets to clean up the mess. This lack of work by the contractors, while they are billing the government for millions in inflated costs, is even affecting the missions that have to be altered or canceled because of lack of supplies and equipment.

Having investigated military contractors for 25 years, I know where some of that money is going. The cost-plus contracts that have been given to KBR and other contractors encouraged them to maximize their profits by dragging out the deliveries, running up costs and minimizing risk by not going where it is dangerous. The Army has given the contractors the wrong incentive in supplying the troops and the contractors are naturally taking advantage of it. KBR averaged $425 million a month last year on their Army service contract.

The DOD and the Congress have been warned about what is going on; the General Accountability Office, the DOD Inspector General and Congressional hearings have scraped the surface of this fiasco. They have noted many problems such as the DOD and the contractors losing track of $1.2 billion of supplies while shipping it to Kuwait and Iraq from the US before the war even started. The American press has also done some stories about how KBR is ripping off the taxpayers but the Army continues to pay KBR's disputed bills. The lack of body armor story seemed to be the only item that caught the attention of the press and the public. But there are many more stories out there.

In the 6th Congressional race in Minnesota, candidate Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war vet, weighs in with her frustrations:

"There's millions and millions of dollars that are missing. It's difficult to tell how much is corruption. I do know $7 million fits in a duffle bag because I delivered them in my helicopter. The money is not being tracked -- that is where the fraud and waste is happening," she said.

At her battalion headquarters, Army cooks were put in charge of counting how many soldiers ate meals, while contractors from Halliburton subsidiary and private military contractor KBR (or Kellogg, Brown & Root) cooked and served the food.

"I was furious that the cooks in our battalion ... couldn't cook because KBR had the contract, charging $24 per person per meal for four meals a day," Duckworth said. "Here we are wasting our money -- the cooks stood at the door and counted how many soldiers ate, so the government would know how much money to send KBR."

Read the whole article here.

IAVA wants to do something about it. We want to tell this story to the Congress and the public from the troops. We have launched a new project and blog called the Follow the Money Project. We plan to take the troops' stories from the field and the procurement investigative leads from inside the Pentagon and expose the fraudulent and politically compromised procurement system that is letting the troops down.

We need help from the troops. It is very hard right now to get documented records because of the chaos of the recordkeeping and lag time on records and auditing. We want to hear stories from the troops on how contractor help is working or not working in Iraq. We will keep you confidential if you want. We want to hear about your experiences with KBR, other service and supply contractors, and any interactions with private military contractors. We want to hear the good, the bad and the ugly. We will then use the information to start to follow the money trail to see if this money is helping the troops where they need it.

I am the chief investigator of Operation Truth's Follow the Money project and would love to hear from you. I have worked with military sources for over 25 years and never had anyone caught and fired so I will protect any source. Please email me at info@iava.org. I hope that we hear from many of you so that we can begin to expose and change this system that is betraying the troops in the field.

Dina Rasor

Relatively non-existent" oversight
Posted by Dina Rasor
09:00 PM Feb 13, 2006

That is how the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction described the accounting and contracting practices of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in a recent Sixty Minutes expose. For those who missed it, you can see a transcript here or watch the video at the same CBS site, if you have the stomach. Officials describe how officials would go to the basement of the CPA and get $2 million in newly printed bills and hand it to a neophyte contractor with no paper trail. The CPA staff used the “bricks” (cellophane wrapped bills totally $100,000) as office footballs for fun.

Some of that money was from US taxpayers; some of it was from seized Iraqi assets and other “war booty.” Millions are missing. That is money that is not spent on fixing the country so the troops can win hearts and minds and come home. It is also money that was not spent early on to train Iraqi troops. Several of the companies who trained the first Iraqi troops failed miserably but they still got paid.

There will be the first trial of one of these contractors, called by the improbable name of Custer Battles, in Washington this week. This trial was not brought by the Department of Justice trying to get our money back, instead it is being done by some whistleblowers under a Federal law that allows them to try to get some of the money back for us. The Department of Justice refused to enter the case and hold these guys accountable. It will be interesting to see if the main stream media covers this trial because it will be a test on whether these contractors will ever be held to account. Stay tuned.


Some IAVA members such as Bobby Yen saw the chaos at the CPA first hand. We at the IAVA Follow the Money Project are looking for other troops who were in or around the CPA until its demise and who may be able to tell us more about what they saw. We are especially looking to talk to any civilians who came to work for the CPA and knew about the contracting practices. Contact us if you have information or leads.

Big Success in Iraq
Posted by Dina Rasor
11:00 PM Feb 04, 2006

The administration likes to say that we are having big successes in Iraq. I will leave that to others to judge but I have seen one big success in Iraq-the financial success of Halliburton. The people that bring you the cybercafés, big mess halls, big screen TVs and now possibly tainted drinking water if you happen to be a fobber (based on the big Forward Operating Bases) have made their company ‘get well" with their huge 10 plus billion dollar, no bid, LOGCAP contract in Iraq. On January 23, Halliburton announced that their net income for last year was $1.1 billion. The year before that it was a loss of $203 million, partly because of the asbestos liability they had when they bought another company. (Dick Chaney, who was CEO at the time, did not realize the size of the liability and put the whole company at risk.)

Halliburton is doing so well that they have decided to make even more money from the KBR division, the one that has the LOGCAP contract. KBR accounted for 52 percent of their revenues last year, $10.9 billion dollars. They have decided not to sell KBR to another company; they are planning an IPO that would sell stock on 20 percent of KBR. Since KBR has made $15.4 billion in revenues from its operation in Iraq since 2003, this may be the hottest offering since Google.

Halliburton admitted that there had been some questioning about overcharges on their Iraq contracts but they claim that they have satisfied the Army Corp of Engineers who administrated the contact. The Army even gave them a bonus of millions of dollars last year for their food halls. All is well in the Halliburton house even though we at IAVA's Follow the Money Project are getting dozens of reports of KBR fraud and mismanagement from troops and contractor employees returning from Iraq.

One of the biggest disputes on Halliburton was the $1.4 billion contract that KBR had with the US government to supply fuel. That contract was paid with seized Iraqi assets. When even the anemic Pentagon auditors found $208 million in questionable overcharges, KBR fought it but finally agreed to pay $9 million back after the US flogged them with a wet noodle. Then the Pentagon began a collusion with KBR to hide the fact that they were getting a refund of Iraqi money from the Iraqi government. According to a Reuters news report, the UN Security Council set up a special mechanism to insure that seized Iraqi assets were protected with oversight. The International Advisory and Monitoring Board (IAMB) asked the DOD for their audit reports. The DOD sent heavily censored reports and the questioned costs were taken out. DOD claims they were trying to protect "trade secrets." Halliburton's trade secrets for ripping off governments?

To add insult to injury, the US was supposed to refund any recovered money, even the measly $9 million out of a $1.4 billion contract, back to Iraq so they could use the money for other projects. According to an IAMB board member, the US pulled a bait and switch tactic to take the money off of what the US owed KBR on other contracts-contracts that were supposed to be paid with US tax money - rather than return it to Iraq. Now the IAMB is trying to get data to do their own audit to see what really happened to the Iraq's money.

Meanwhile, Halliburton has gotten well, very well, and the US Army continues to buzz along and continues to pay KBR on its no bid $10 billion LOGCAP contract. How much more fraud will go on until KBR is really held to account? When will the Army stop embarrassing us to the rest of the world with its smiling acquiescence to this company?

We know that many of the troops coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan know about more KBR fraud and waste. We at the Follow the Money Project would like to hear from you about what you have seen. We will protect your identity. Let me hear from you so we can begin to make a dent in this disgrace.

Do as we say not as we do
Posted by Dina Rasor
05:30 PM Feb 03, 2006

When the CPA took over Iraq after "mission accomplished", the US also seized billions of dollars of Iraqi assets to cover the reconstruction of the country. Our goal was to take a country whose infrastructure was on its back because of Sadam's government of cronyism and corruption. We were to bring democracy, order and rule of law to Iraq.

Three years later, the DOD Inspector General and a special Army audit has shown that billions of dollars of Iraq's money may have been misspent. The special army report, as reported in the New York Times showed that contractors were being paid for work not done including a contract for a hospital that was paid for but never built. There were Iraqi subcontractors listed that did not even know that they had a job There were millions of dollars unaccounted for. Seems that we are exporting our own version of cronyism and corruption. It is well known that the original CPA, which let many of these contracts, were manned by eager and young Congressional staff aides and other young sycophants who sent their resumes to the Heritage Foundation.

Ali Allawi, the Iraq finance minister feels betrayed. He told the New York Times, "It just confirms the general sense that Iraqi government money has been squandered," This is definitely not helping us win hearts and minds in Iraq. Not only were there the fraud and the waste but there the consequences of this corruption. According to the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction's recent report:

-- The US has obligated over $3 billion for Iraq's electric grid, Iraq's generation capacity was 4500 megawatts before the war, now it is 3995 megawatts with only 2710 megawatts coming from the US efforts. Iraqis living in Baghdad had an average of just less than 4 hours of electricity a day during January.

-- The US has obligated over $1.4 billion to restore Iraq's oil infrastructure. Before the war, Iraq was exporting 2 million barrels of oil a day. Now it is exporting 1.6 million barrels of oil per day.

-- Before the war, 50 percent of Iraqis had access to drinkable water. After obligating over $1.4 billion dollars, the rate has dropped to 32 percent

We preach the virtues of democracy and the rule of law will save Iraq's society and lead to the good life. But we have allowed our government agents and their contractors to squander precious Iraqi assets and left their basic infrastructure need worse off than when we came three years ago. This will not help us win in Iraq and the corruption poses a direct threat to the soldiers as angry and frustrated Iraqis take out their anger on the nearest target of the American policy -- our troops. Where is the outrage in our Congress and press? Where is the shame for squandering their money with abandon? Where is our honor as a country?

IAVA's Follow the Money Project is heavily investigating this and wants your input. What have you seen in Iraq concerning these infrastructure contracts and from other DOD contractors on the ground in Iraq? Let us know and we will protect your identity.

Cronyism Kills: How Political Favors Endanger our Troops
Posted by Dina Rasor
06:00 PM Sep 20, 2005

We all saw how cronyism helped to doom New Orleans. Money slated to redo the levies was pulled off for other pet projects (including a water fountain built by the New Orleans Levy District). Local and state governments used disaster preparation money for other civic projects and even corruption (Louisiana is listed as one of the most corrupt states in the union). And, the director of FEMA turned out to be a crony of the previous director of FEMA who was the president’s campaign manager; neither of them had professional disaster experience.

The result was clear to anyone watching television in the past few weeks. This cronyism that helped to lose a city also killed some the most vulnerable of citizens, the poor, the infirmed, and the young. We could see a direct cause and effect and there have already been calls for investigation and reform. The corruption killed and there were actual bodies to prove it.

Cronyism is killing troops in Iraq but it is much harder to understand and prove because soldiers are dying anyway….it is a war. We know about Halliburton and the waste of money but little has publicly been said about what the lack of services, including basic food and water, is doing to the health and ability of the troops to fight and live. How many troops have been lost because they are tired from constant heat from no air conditioning, dehydrated, sleep deprived from months in substandard barracks and are not alert on a patrol? One wrong judgment in Iraq can mean death to the soldier and those around him. We won’t see these deaths from neglect because there is no TV camera to show the fatigue of the unit and men and women die in war from other reasons.

Operation Truth has been hearing from troops about this cronyism with KBR and other contractors. One soldier told us that several of his commanders planned to go work with KBR when they got out or had relative employed with them. He said that the other one was afraid of the political clout of KBR and would not challenge them when they did not supply the troops as promised. Even at this late date, we are still hearing about troops “beyond the flagpole” who are living in the desert and other forsaken areas without the basics of food, water, and a decent place to sleep because KBR refuses to deliver supplies in the more dangerous areas and the commanders let them get away with it.

KBR is not the only problem. Blackwater, another security contractor who has been in trouble with some of the military for their cowboy security, will have a new employee soon – the DOD Inspector General Joseph Schmitz, the man that was suppose to be overseeing all fraud and corruption in the DOD. This type of blatant revolving door and cronyism discourages anyone in the system to do real oversight and stand up to the corruption. In the past, this type of cronyism was hidden and shameful. Now is has become common place and business as usual.

We are also hearing from troops that their commands will have great Internet cafes, plasma TVs and even soft serve ice cream to give their troops “the best” but won’t make sure that they have decent night vision goggles, body armor, or spare parts for their vehicles to protect them when they have to leave the safe confines of the Internet café.

Adjusted for inflation, the Iraq war is now costing us more per month than the Vietnam War with many fewer soldiers to supply. Contractor logistics and the resulting cronyism are not only costing us more than the average war, it is costing us the lives of our troops in hidden and secret ways. We are determined to expose this tragedy to the public. Keep sending us your stories.

Hidden Truth
Posted by Dina Rasor
01:30 PM Aug 23, 2005

We are spending about five billion dollars a month in Iraq. In a little over two years, we have spent the equivalent to half of the 12-year Vietnam War or half of World War I with many fewer men under arms. Over a billion a week is all Rumsfeld asks. And the Congress and American public have willingly voted for this money because, as one general once told me,” we need the best for our boys.”

But there is a mismatch here. While the DOD is pouring buckets of water through the procurement sponge, only a few drops are reaching many of the troops. Troops will tell you that in the Green Zone or in the bigger camps “around the flagpole,” where the brass hangs out, there are fancy facilities run by KBR and other contractors but that if you are deployed outside these zones, you will be hurting for vehicle parts, body armor, food and even drinking water. Various Operation Truth veterans tell stories about how the billion a week did not trickle down to them during the war and even months after the war. Perry Jefferies, several months after President Bush landed on the aircraft carrier and declared “mission accomplished,” was forced to commandeer the rare shower trucks that came to Camp Caldwell so his hungry and desperate troops could drink the water. Ray Kimball will tell you how he frantically tried to keep his group of helicopters flying, while based at the Baghdad Airport, even though he did not get a single spare part delivered for two months after the war started.

We are hearing from troops who are returning now that there are still big problems with contractors delivering supplies and taking care of the troops. Another big problem is the private security contractors who are losing hearts and minds of the Iraqis while troops patrol the streets to clean up the mess. This lack of work by the contractors, while they are billing the government for millions in inflated costs, is even affecting the missions that have to be altered or canceled because of lack of supplies and equipment.

Having investigated military contractors for 25 years, I know where the money is going. The cost-plus contracts that have been given to KBR and other contractors encouraged them to maximize their profits by dragging out the deliveries, running up costs and minimizing risk by not going where it is dangerous.

The DOD and the Congress have been warned about what is going on; the General Accountability Office, the DOD Inspector General and Congressional hearings have scraped the surface of this fiasco. They have noted many problems such as the DOD and the contractors losing track of $1.2 billion of supplies while shipping it to Kuwait and Iraq from the US before the war even started. The American press has also done some stories about how KBR is ripping off the taxpayers but they haven’t taken it the next step to show the troops are being deprived of what they need to fight and win in the field. The lack of body armor story seemed to be the only item that caught the attention of the press and the public and some of the troops still don’t have what they need.

Operation Truth wants to do something about it. We want to tell this story to the Congress and the public from the troops. In early September, we will be launching a new Operation Truth project and blog called the Follow the Money Project. We plan to take the troops’ stories from the field and the procurement investigative leads from inside the Pentagon and expose the fraudulent and politically compromised procurement system that is letting the troops down.

We need help from the troops. We are working with a major newspaper on a story that will appear in early September about the problems the troops had with getting supplies, dealing with private security contractors and any other stories on how the contractors are failing to provide for the troops. This war has more contractors than any other US war in history and we are finding fundamental problems of leaving the supplying and caring of the troops to private contractors in a war zone. We want to hear stories from the troops leading up to the war, during the war, during the early occupation and especially any problems seen during the past year. Many of our current sources are still on active duty and cannot talk to the press, on or off the record. We are looking for troops that have completely separated from the services to talk on the record to this reporter or inactive reserve troops to tell their story off the record.

I will be the chief investigator of Operation Truth’s Follow the Money project and would love to hear from you. I have worked with military sources for over 25 years and never had anyone caught and fired so I will protect any source. Please email me at dina@optruth.org. I hope that we hear from many of you so that we can begin to expose and change this system that is betraying the troops in the field.