KBR and Contaminated Water According to a
damning internal report by a KBR employee, congressional investigations and a series of
news reports, Troops have been exposed to contaminated water at many or all of the sites in Iraq where water quality was supposed
to be maintained by KBR, a private contractor and a subsidiary of Halliburton. The extent of the Troops' exposure to contaminated
water is not clear, because of the lack of documentation by KBR. Responding to public pressure, the DOD Inspector General
has begun to investigate this problem.
On April 7, 2006, IAVA member Veteran Richard Murphy testified at the request
of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee on the issue of water contamination. Click
here to read his testimony.
We've been talking about these problems for months. Read Paul Rieckhoff's article on the KBR
water scandal
here, and Dina Rasor's blog comments
here.
And we'll continue our work. Follow the Money Project Chief Investigator Dina Rasor has been working closely
with Ben Carter, the courageous KBR employee who first identified this problem, and then went public when his superiors at
KBR refused to take action. As the DOD investigation goes forward, the Follow the Money Project will be following their progress,
to ensure that Troops' water is clean and that the government recoups any money that KBR received for water quality services
that they failed to provide.
KBR's actions left Troops' water supply vulnerable to a wide array of threats.
We have 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.)
Click
here to read a 1991 DOD report that lists the water-borne health threats in Northern Iraq.
We will continue to
update this page as soon as we get more detailed information that can help the troops and their doctors with this problem.
If you served in Iraq, and are experiencing unusual or persistent gastrointestinal illnesses or infections, send an
email to
admin@followthemoneyproject.org so that we can continue to alert investigators and agencies in the government to a pattern of problems.
Equipment Problems or Where is the Money Going?
We are spending almost eight billion
dollars a month in Iraq. In a little over three years, we have spent the equivalent to almost 2/3 of the 12-year Vietnam War
or 2/3 of World War I with many fewer men under arms. Over two billion a week is all the Pentagon 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 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.
To read more about their stories and other troops stories on the failures in Iraq, read our new book,
Betraying Our
Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War. You can order the book from Amazon by clicking
here.
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, we know where the money
is going. The cost reimbursement 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.
The Follow the Money Project wants to do something about it. We want to tell this story to the
Congress and the public from the troops. We have been gathering stories form the troops about how they are not getting the
war fighting equipment they need but are sometimes getting items that they don't need. 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 media to develop stories 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. You can read some of the stories that
have already been written on our
current news page. 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.
Email us at
admin@followthemoneyproject.org and tell us your story. We will keep your story confidential unless you want to be public.
