It is often brought up by members of the Left that we went into Iraq because Mr. Cheney wanted to help his friends in Haliburton steal all the Muslims' oil. This would sound more like shrieking paranoia were it not for the good people over at KBR. Formally a Haliburton subsidiary called Kellogg Brown and Root, KBR has for the past five years been doing its best to act like a corporation in a Grisham novel. It is amazing how little press some of this stuff has gotten.
So KBR is currently the primary vendor of food and other supplies to American soldiers. It has been paid $24 billion dollars since the war began, largely from no-bid contracts. It has been alleged that these contracts were given due to the company's political connections to the White House, via Dick Cheney. But what's a government sponsored monopoly between friends? If that were all, KBR would be barely more evil than Juan Trippe's PanAm in The Aviator.
Now there are plenty of stories coming out of Iraq highlighting the sort of shadyness and incompetence that KBR regularly displays. KBR found a great way to save money, for example, by taking waste water, pouring some chlorine into it, filtering it, and piping it back to American Soldiers for bathing and laundry use. KBR is also under investigation for ignoring the warnings of its electricians about shoddy wiring, which may have led to the electrocution and death of 12 service members in Iraq. But where KBR really goes into Grisham territory is the story of Jamie Leigh Jones.
Jones was an employee of KBR in Iraq in 2006. She was roofied and raped by one of her fellow employees. This in itself is not too uncommon for female contractors in Iraq. What made Jones's case special was her employers reaction to the news. You see, one might expect that when a company is presented with a terrible situation like this, they would quickly move to assist and console the victim. If for no other reason than to limit their financial liability. KBR decided to go a different route.
After Ms. Jones saw a US Army physician and was given a rape kit, which confirmed that she had been drugged and raped by multiple parties, she was promptly escorted by KBR security to a shipping container. There she was held against her will for four days, until she managed to beg a cell phone from one of her guards. She called her father, who contacted Congressman Ted Poe. Poe contacted the State Department, which sent two Foreign Service Officers to rescue Ms. Jones.
Just like any Grisham-esq corporate thriller, the behavior of KBR makes very little sense. Why lock the poor girl up? At that point, why not kill her? I mean, if your banking on the "Iraq is the Wild West and therefor laws don't apply" theory, why not take it to its logical conclusion? Jones was not just raped. She ended up needing reconstructive surgery after the incident. It seems a bit unrealistic to expect her to cool her heels and get over it.
Of course Iraq is the Wild West, according to the Bush Administration, and KBR is a protected company. So the the Justice Department is in no rush to investigate and even though Ms. Jones returned form Iraq two years ago there has been little progress on her case. Her best hope for justice is to wait until January when the new administration comes in.
KBR's protection by the Bush administration has been reemphasized this week by new allegations against them, this time by an ex-US army official who says he was fired for contesting "$1 billion in questionable payments".
So KBR is currently the primary vendor of food and other supplies to American soldiers. It has been paid $24 billion dollars since the war began, largely from no-bid contracts. It has been alleged that these contracts were given due to the company's political connections to the White House, via Dick Cheney. But what's a government sponsored monopoly between friends? If that were all, KBR would be barely more evil than Juan Trippe's PanAm in The Aviator.
Now there are plenty of stories coming out of Iraq highlighting the sort of shadyness and incompetence that KBR regularly displays. KBR found a great way to save money, for example, by taking waste water, pouring some chlorine into it, filtering it, and piping it back to American Soldiers for bathing and laundry use. KBR is also under investigation for ignoring the warnings of its electricians about shoddy wiring, which may have led to the electrocution and death of 12 service members in Iraq. But where KBR really goes into Grisham territory is the story of Jamie Leigh Jones.
Jones was an employee of KBR in Iraq in 2006. She was roofied and raped by one of her fellow employees. This in itself is not too uncommon for female contractors in Iraq. What made Jones's case special was her employers reaction to the news. You see, one might expect that when a company is presented with a terrible situation like this, they would quickly move to assist and console the victim. If for no other reason than to limit their financial liability. KBR decided to go a different route.
After Ms. Jones saw a US Army physician and was given a rape kit, which confirmed that she had been drugged and raped by multiple parties, she was promptly escorted by KBR security to a shipping container. There she was held against her will for four days, until she managed to beg a cell phone from one of her guards. She called her father, who contacted Congressman Ted Poe. Poe contacted the State Department, which sent two Foreign Service Officers to rescue Ms. Jones.
Just like any Grisham-esq corporate thriller, the behavior of KBR makes very little sense. Why lock the poor girl up? At that point, why not kill her? I mean, if your banking on the "Iraq is the Wild West and therefor laws don't apply" theory, why not take it to its logical conclusion? Jones was not just raped. She ended up needing reconstructive surgery after the incident. It seems a bit unrealistic to expect her to cool her heels and get over it.
Of course Iraq is the Wild West, according to the Bush Administration, and KBR is a protected company. So the the Justice Department is in no rush to investigate and even though Ms. Jones returned form Iraq two years ago there has been little progress on her case. Her best hope for justice is to wait until January when the new administration comes in.
KBR's protection by the Bush administration has been reemphasized this week by new allegations against them, this time by an ex-US army official who says he was fired for contesting "$1 billion in questionable payments".
Smith was replaced by an outside contractor, who immediately authorized the payments."The official, Charles Smith, was the senior civilian overseeing the multibillion-dollar contract with KBR during the first two years of the war. Speaking out for the first time, Smith said that he was forced from his position in 2004 after informing KBR officials that the army would impose escalating financial penalties if they failed to improve their chaotic Iraqi operations. Army auditors had determined that KBR lacked credible data or records for more than $1 billion in spending, so Smith refused to sign off on the payments to the company.
'They had a gigantic amount of costs they couldn't justify,' he said. 'Ultimately, the money that was going to KBR was money being taken away from the troops, and I wasn't going to do that.'"
In other news, KBR is opening up a new division dedicated to growing out handlebar mustaches and tieing damsels to railroad tracks. This is following revelations that KBR will soon begin feeding America's troops in Iraq a balanced diet of clubbed baby seal and recycled orphans.
1 comment:
Throw in some outdated sci-fi and KBR could be the antagonist of an anti-corporate 80s movie; the sort that puts doing evil a notch above the rather pedestrian pursuit of profitability.
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