KBR
Kidnapping, Bribery and Rape
at US Taxpayers’ Expense?
Sightings from The Catbird Seat
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January 7, 2009
KBR wins contract despite criminal probe of deaths
By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press
WASHINGTON – Defense contractor KBR Inc. has been awarded a $35 million Pentagon contract involving major electrical work, even as it is under criminal investigation in the electrocution deaths of at least two U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
The announcement of the new KBR contract came just months after the Pentagon, in strongly worded correspondence obtained by The Associated Press, rejected the company's explanation of serious mistakes in Iraq and its proposed improvements. A senior Pentagon official, David J. Graff, cited the company's "continuing quality deficiencies" and said KBR executives were "not sufficiently in touch with the urgency or realities of what was actually occurring on the ground."
"Many within DOD (the Department of Defense) have lost or are losing all remaining confidence in KBR's ability to successfully and repeatedly perform the required electrical support services mission in Iraq," wrote Graff, commander of the Defense Contract Management Agency, in a Sept. 30 letter.
Graff rejected the company's claims that it wasn't required to follow U.S. electrical codes for its work on U.S. military facilities in Iraq. KBR has said it would cost an extra $560 million to refurbish buildings in Iraq used by the U.S. military, including Saddam Hussein's palaces, which among other problems are based on a 220-volt standard rather than the American 120-volt standard.
KBR announced last week it won a new $35.4 million contract from the Army Corps of Engineers to design and build a convoy support center at Camp Adder in southern Iraq. It will include a power plant, electrical distribution center, water purification and distribution systems, wastewater and information systems and road paving.
Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said the new KBR contract was inappropriate. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said he has formally asked the Corps of Engineers whether it was confident KBR could accomplish it and whether the Corps had any alternatives.
"This is hardly the time to award KBR a new contract for work they've already failed to perform adequately, and which put U.S. soldiers at even greater risk," Dorgan said in a statement. "Ultimately, contractors must be held accountable, and so should those who continue to award these contracts."
A KBR spokeswoman, Heather Browne, said the company was committed to providing quality services and would comply with the military's requirements in its work on the Camp Adder contract.
The AP has learned that Army criminal agents have reopened the death investigation of Staff Sgt. Christopher Lee Everett, 23, a member of the Texas Army National Guard. Everett was killed September 2005 in Iraq when the power washer he was using to clean a vehicle short-circuited. KBR and another contractor, Arkel International, performed the electrical work on the device's generator, according to a civil lawsuit filed by Everett's family.
"I think it's something that needs to be done so these electrocutions don't continue to happen," Everett's mother, Larraine McGee of Huntsville, Texas, told the AP in a phone interview. "There's no excuse for this whatsoever." McGee said the Army's senior criminal investigator at Fort Hood notified her about the reopened investigation.
The AP previously reported that the Army has reclassified another soldier's electrocution death as a negligent homicide caused by KBR and two of its supervisors. Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, 24, a Green Beret from Pittsburgh, was electrocuted in his barracks shower. An Army investigator said KBR's contractor failed to ensure qualified electricians and plumbers did the work. The case is under legal review, and KBR has said it was not responsible for Maseth's death.
The deaths of Everett and Maseth are among the 18 under review by the Pentagon's inspector general. Some of the deaths have been blamed on improperly installed or maintained electrical equipment. In three cases, service members were shocked while showering. Families of Maseth and Everett also have sued KBR in federal court for wrongful death; the company is attempting to have the lawsuits dismissed.
The Corps of Engineers said KBR has earned $615 million on 30 similar contracts as the newest it awarded to the company and noted that KBR has not been banned or suspended from winning U.S. government contracts. The government can ban companies in cases of fraud, antitrust violations, bribery, tax evasion or for actions that reflect "a lack of business integrity or business honesty," according to federal rules.
"KBR has not been debarred, suspended, nor have they been proposed for debarment from government contracting," Corps spokeswoman Joan Kibler said.
KBR was previously owned by Halliburton Co., the oil services conglomerate that former Vice President Dick Cheney once led. Democrats have long complained it benefited from ties to Cheney.
Separately, court papers filed in Houston on Friday show KBR is preparing to plead guilty to federal bribery charges for promising and paying tens of millions of dollars in bribes to officials in Nigeria in exchange for engineering and construction contracts between 1995 and 2004.
Browne, the KBR spokeswoman, said the company had no comment. The company is expected to appear in federal court next week as part of a plea deal.
February 6, 2009
Halliburton Whistleblower Requests Your Help To Protect Taxpayers
From: "National Whistleblowers Center - Bunny Greenhouse" lmw@whistleblowers.org
To: “Bobby N. Harmon”
Personal Letter From Bunny Greenhouse
Take Action! Please Urge Your Senators To Support Taxpayers!
Dear Action Alert Member:
My name is Bunny Greenhouse. I am the former Procurement Executive and highest-ranking Army Corps of Engineers civilian procurement official.
Today I am asking you to contact your Senators and Representatives to demand, in the strongest possible terms, that employees who disclose fraud in federal contracting are fully and properly protected in the 800 billion dollar stimulus package that Congress is currently debating.
Here's why.
Shortly before the Iraq War commenced, I blew the whistle on improper contracting concerning the award of a multi-billion dollar no-bid, cost plus contract to Halliburton / KBR for the reconstruction of Iraq.
I was concerned that improper contracting activity would cost the taxpayers billions – and it did. The contract should not have been awarded. From my inside prospective, it was clear that the “fix was in” – the contract was going to be awarded to Halliburton no matter what I said or did.
Those who should have protested the contract remained silent. And their silence is not surprising because, as federal employees, we have no meaningful whistleblower protection! We can be fired for reporting fraud. We can lose our careers simply for doing our job and trying to protect the taxpayer.
I know this is true. It happened to me. The top brass demanded that I drop my protests. I refused. The top brass – many of whom had longstanding relations with government contractors – retaliated. They removed me from the Senior Executive Service and from anything having to do with contract oversight. When I went to federal court to demand protection the judge dismissed my case because as a federal employee I had no protection.
The bottom line is that without access to independent courts, real judges and juries, whistleblowers don’t stand a chance, and fairness and transparency will not see the light day.
Only Congress can fix this. The House of Representatives has already acted decisively by adding H.R. 985 to the stimulus bill, by a unanimous voice vote (now called H.R. 1, Section IV). President Obama's presidential campaign is on record as supporting the same whistleblower protections now found in House version of the stimulus bill.
So, the buck stops with the Senate. I urge you to contact your Senators and let them know that whistleblower protection is a critical part of the stimulus package for protection of the public trust. I urge you to contact your Representatives and tell them to hold strong -- and refuse to cut whistleblower protections from the bill. Federal employees, like me, who risk their careers to protect taxpayer money need to be protected.
Please act now! Pass this letter to your friends! Pass this letter to your co-workers! Pass this letter to your family! Send a letter to your Senator Now!
Billions of taxpayer dollars are at stake and it is up to the Senate to do the right thing.
Very truly yours,
Bunnatine H. Greenhouse
Former Procurement Executive
Army Corps of Engineers
National Whistleblower Center Action Alert
December 4, 2008
Stranded workers in Iraq:
Recruiters duped us
From Michael Ware, CNN
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Kept in a derelict warehouse at Baghdad's airport for months, sleeping four to a bed with poor food and no money, hundreds of would-be contract workers are stranded, claiming they were duped by unscrupulous recruiting agents into coming to Iraq for nonexistent jobs.
The recruiters told the men -- from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Uganda -- that jobs were waiting for them with American defense contractor KBR, through a Kuwaiti company called Najlaa Catering Services. The recruiting agents charged them between $3,000 and $5,000 to make the trip to Iraq; many sold their farms or other valuables to raise the money.
But when they arrived in Baghdad, they said, Najlaa housed about 1,000 of them -- 600 in the one-room warehouse -- in the compound within the airport, surrounded by private security guards. Showers are there, but are useless because the taps are nonfunctional. Many have questions about their visas and status in Iraq. Legally unable to stay, they lack the money to return home.
Asked if their governments were helping them, the men said, "Nothing, nothing." They said that when they protested, their guards fired guns upward to silence them.
Najlaa's officials in Iraq refused comment to CNN. The company's Kuwaiti office said the situation was "under control" and being dealt with.
Some Ugandan men said the Iraqi police handcuffed and beat them. "They say, 'If you are here for the U.S., we're going to show you the difference between the U.S. government and the Iraqi government. Let's see if the U.S. is going to help you,' " one man said. Iraqi police would not answer questions regarding those allegations.
As the men spoke to CNN on camera, an official in charge of them threatened to lock them out of the compound unless they returned inside within two minutes.
KBR was not involved in recruiting the men. The company told CNN it does not condone unethical behavior, saying its contractors abide by its code of conduct, including training in human trafficking. The company said when it becomes aware of possible trafficking it works "to remediate the problem and report the matter to proper authorities. KBR then works with authorities to rectify the matter."
Meanwhile, men at a separate makeshift camp nearby said they were duped by different recruiters. They live off food donated by Iraqi workers, and say the men who brought them to Iraq have disappeared.
The men in the makeshift camp said their immigration status is in limbo. Their passports have been taken, or pages with visas have been torn out.
Help may be on the way. The men said United Nations workers had visited them. The world organization told CNN it is aware of the situation and is figuring out how to assist the men.
The U.S. military told CNN it takes human rights abuses seriously and is looking into the matter. The Iraqi government has also confiscated the passport of a Najlaa official until a solution is found.
But for the stranded men, help can't come soon enough.
"It's not fair," one said....
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/04/iraq.forgotten.workers/index.html
December 19, 2007
WOMAN TESTIFIES SHE WAS GANG RAPED BY US CONTRACTORS IN IRAQ
Yahoo.com
A US woman who said she was raped by US contractors in Iraq testified in Congress on Wednesday, telling legislators that she was kept under armed guard in her trailer after reporting the incident.
Jamie Leigh Jones, now 23, said that she was gang raped inside the Baghdad Green Zone in July 2005 while she was working for the Halliburton subsidiary KBR Inc, which has support contracts with the US military.
The US Department of Justice failed to send an attorney to the House of Representatives sub-committee hearing, which Democrat John Conyers blasted as "outrageous" and "unacceptable."
Jones told committee members that on her fourth day in Baghdad some co-workers, who she described as Halliburton-KBR firefighters, invited her for a drink. "I took two sips from the drink and don't remember anything after that," she said.
The next morning Jones woke up groggy and confused, and with a sore chest and blood between her legs. She reported the incident to KBR and was examined by an army doctor, who confirmed she had been repeatedly raped vaginally and anally.
The doctor took photographs, made notes, and handed all the evidence over to KBR personnel.
"The KBR security then took me to a trailer and then locked me in a room with two armed guards outside my door," Jones testified. "I was imprisoned in the trailer for approximately a day. One of the guards finally had mercy and let me use a phone."
Jones called her father in Texas, who called his representative in Congress, Republican Ted Poe. Poe contacted the State Department, who quickly sent personnel to rescue Jones and flew her back to Texas.
The rape was so brutal she is still undergoing reconstructive surgery, Jones said.
Jones tried to get her case resolved first through KBR channels, then through the US Department of Justice. When neither course seemed to work, she gave an interview with ABC television news.
KBR has been silent on the matter, though according to ABC News the company circulated a memo among employees signed by company president and CEO Bill Utt saying that it "disputes portions of Ms. [Jamie Leigh] Jones' version and facts."
Jones said that she knows of at least 11 other women who were raped by US contractors in Iraq.
Jones' KBR contract however included a clause which prevents her from suing her employer, Poe said, which will likely force her into arbitration, which he described as "a privatized justice system with no public record, no discovery and no meaningful appeal."
There are many laws that the Department of Justice (DOJ) "can enforce with respect to contractors who commit crimes abroad, but it chooses not to," Democrat Robert Scott said.
The DOJ "seems to be taking action with respect to enforcement of criminal laws in Iraq only when it is forced to do something by embarrassing media coverage," he added.
"This is outrageous that we even have to be here today," said Conyers, adding that it shows "how far out of control the law enforcement system in Iraq is today."
There are 180,000 civilian contractor employees in Iraq, including more than 21,000 Americans, Conyers said.
While the DOJ says it is committed to law enforcement in Iraq, "they can't even give us one example of a prosecution where the victim was a civilian contractor employee in Iraq," Conyers added.
Poe was equally caustic.
The department's silence on the case "speaks volumes about the hidden crimes in Iraq," he said.
December 19, 2007
From: "Public Citizen" <publiccitizen@mail.democracyinaction.org >
Subject: Halliburton Victim Twice Over
Dear Citizen,
Jamie Leigh Jones told ABC's 20/20 that while she was working in Iraq for a Halliburton subsidiary called KBR she was gang raped. Afterwards, she was confined to a shipping container with a bed and warned that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be fired.
Now, Jamie Leigh Jones is being victimized twice over. Halliburton is denying her constitutional right to have her traumatic experience heard by a jury.
Tell Congress this cannot stand.
Binding mandatory arbitration clauses, like the one in Halliburton's employment contract, are increasingly common. This means that Jamie, like millions of other Americans, cannot take her employer to court. Instead, she will be forced into a secret, privatized justice system with no accountability. She might even be required to make her case to an arbitrator chosen by Halliburton, with no appeal to anyone else.
Right now, Congress is considering legislation to reign in the predatory practice used by Iraq contractors, credit card companies, mortgage lenders and others. Your representatives need to hear your outrage and your demand for an end to the arbitration trap.
Tell your members of Congress it is time to pass the Arbitration Fairness Act (H.R. 3010/S. 1782) to ban binding mandatory arbitration clauses in employment contracts like Jamie's, as well as in other consumer, franchisee, and securities contracts.
Arbitration should be voluntary - chosen by both parties when a dispute arises - not a mandatory condition of getting a job, using a cell phone, trading stocks, holding a credit card, or entering a nursing home!
Take action NOW to tell your members of Congress to co-sponsor the Arbitration Fairness Act.
Sincerely,
Angela Canterbury
Director of Advocacy
Public Citizen's Congress Watch
action@citizen.org
July 26, 2000
CHENEY AT THE HELM
AT HALLIBURTON, OIL AND
HUMAN RIGHTS DID NOT MIX
By Wayne Madsen, Wayne Madsen Report
Dick Cheney, George W. Bush's running mate, is a far cry from the "aw, shucks" kind of Wyoming cowboy-politician painted by Republican strategists. When he was at the helm of the Dallas-based oil services giant Halliburton, Inc., from 1995 until his nomination, the company and its subsidiaries – Brown & Root and Dresser Industries--were deeply enmeshed in the military-intelligence complex.
After serving as Secretary of Defense in Bush the Elder's Administration and making Kuwait safe once again for U.S. oil companies, Cheney went around the country making speeches. But when the CEO spot opened up at Halliburton, the board of directors tapped him, knowing that his connections would come in handy. They just didn't know how handy.
For instance, after Halliburton acquired Dresser in 1998, it helped rebuild Iraq's petroleum industry, which Cheney and the Pentagon had decimated during Desert Storm.
During a 1998 speech in Corpus Christi, Texas, Cheney conceded that his top job at the Pentagon stood him in good stead at Halliburton. "In the oil and gas business, I deal with many of the same people," he told the convention of the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies.
"Cheney delivered fast, embarking on months of globe-trotting that got Halliburton top-level attention from prime ministers and oil sheikhs from Riyadh and Baku to Lagos and Caracas," The Washington Post reported. "Soon he was on a first-name basis with oil ministers all over the world, building on the ties he had developed in the Middle East during his Pentagon days."
The Pentagon itself has been a huge boon to the company. "Halliburton eats at the trough of government contracts," says Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy & Environment Program, noting that the company's two largest government contracts are with the Pentagon and the British Ministry of Defense.
Cheney's links to defense contractors and the intelligence community have made him suspect among human rights activists. Halliburton and Brown & Root have played a role in some of the world's most volatile trouble spots. These include Algeria, Angola, Bosnia, Burma, Croatia, Haiti, Kuwait, Nigeria, Russia, Rwanda, and Somalia.
In 1998, while I was in Rwanda conducting research for my book, Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999 (Edwin Mellen, 1999), a number of U.S. military personnel assigned to that country raised questions about Brown & Root's activities. "Brown & Root is into some real bad shit," one told me.
The U.S. Army Materiel Command has confirmed that Brown & Root was in Rwanda under contract with the Pentagon.
One U.S. Navy de-mining expert told me that Brown & Root helped Rwanda's U.S.-backed government fight a guerrilla war. Brown & Root's official task was to help clear mines. However, my research showed it was more involved in providing covert military support to the Tutsi-led Rwanda Patriotic Army in putting down a Hutu insurgency and assisting its invasion of the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (Cheney and Halliburton declined numerous opportunities to comment on this story.)
Cheney was no stranger to covert activities in Rwanda. In 1990, during his tenure as Secretary of Defense, Rwandan strongman Major General Paul Kagame, then a colonel in the Ugandan People's Democratic Force, attended the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Kagame, with the likely knowledge of the U.S. Army and Cheney, suddenly dropped out of the school to assume command of the nascent Rwanda Patriotic Army, which later that year launched a full-scale invasion of Rwanda from rear bases inside Uganda. U.S. military advisers were present in Uganda at the time of the invasion, another fact that would have been known to Cheney and his Pentagon advisers.
While three separate commissions appointed by Belgium, France, and the Organization of African Unity have charged their own officials with complicity in central Africa's turmoil, no American panel has ever probed the involvement of the U.S. government, military, and defense contractors in central Africa's woes. If there were such a panel, Dick Cheney, the man in charge of both the Pentagon and Halliburton during various invasions of Rwanda and the Congo, would certainly have to be called and asked, "What did you know about covert U.S. military operations in central Africa and when did you know about them?"
But that's not all of Halliburton's questionable involvements. The other most serious charge against Halliburton comes from a group called Environmental Rights Action based in Harcourt, Nigeria.
"In September of 1997, eighteen Mobile Police officers . . . shot and killed one Gidikumo Sule at the Opuama flow station at Egbema in Warri. . . . Several other youths were injured during a protest," said the group in a report dated October 16, 1998. It implicated Halliburton in this repression, saying that the company was in collaboration with the police.
Cheney was at the helm of Halliburton at the time.
Halliburton has worked with Chevron and Shell in Nigeria, which have been implicated in gross human rights violations and environmental devastation there.
Leaders like Equatorial Guinea's Obiang Nguema Mbasogo and Congo (Brazzaville) President Denis Sassou-Nguesso also use the revenues generated from Halliburton-built offshore oil platforms to enrich themselves and their families while ruthlessly suppressing ethnic and political opposition.
In Burma, Halliburton began work in the oil sector a decade ago. Oil company ties to the repressive government there have drawn criticism from human rights groups around the world.
Halliburton also has some unsavory ties in Russia. "Halliburton was a beneficiary of $292 million in loan guarantees extended earlier this year by the U.S. Export-Import Bank for a Russian company's development of a Siberian oilfield," The Washington Post reported. "The deal was a major embarrassment for Halliburton because the Russian company that is Halliburton's partner, Tyumen Oil, has been accused of committing a massive fraud to gain control of the oilfield."
What's more, Halliburton has been involved with so-called private military companies. Brown & Root has acted in concert with U.S. mercenary companies like AirScan and MPRI (recently acquired by L-3 Communications) from Angola to Croatia.
Halliburton's environmental record is nothing to be proud of, either. "They've had a lot of problems," says Hauter.
Even the company admits that. "Regrettably, in 1998, reported environmental incidents increased," Halliburton says on its web site. "An environmental incident is any unplanned event regardless of magnitude that could potentially damage the environment."
The company's annual financial statements say: "Our accrued liabilities for environmental matters were $30 million as of December 31, 1999."
Cheney's role at Halliburton and Bush's background in the oil industry suggest that the interests of this sector will be paramount in a Bush Administration.
"With a Bush-Cheney team running the Executive Branch, Big Oil will be in the driver's seat," says Hauter.
A Bush-Cheney Administration would mark a return to yesteryear. Their ties to oil companies and the intelligence community should worry indigenous, environmental, and human rights activists the world over.
– Wayne Madsen is a journalist based in Washington, D.C., and a Senior Fellow of the Electronic Privacy Information Center there.
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Originally posted December 5, 2008
Last update February 7, 2009, by The Catbird
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