DOWNLOADS: (173)

PLAYS: (1199)

Embed

This story is just disgusting. There ought to be criminal charges against this contractor for doing this, instead of them trying to dump their liabilities onto the taxpayers: KBR, Guilty In Iraq Negligence, Wants Taxpayers To Foot The Bill:

Sodium dichromate is an orange-yellowish substance containing hexavalent chromium, an anti-corrosion chemical. To Lt. Col. James Gentry of the Indiana National Guard, who was stationed at the Qarmat Ali water treatment center in Iraq just after the 2003 U.S. invasion, it was “just different-colored sand.” In their first few months at the base, soldiers were told by KBR contractors running the facility the substance was no worse than a mild irritant.

Gentry was one of approximately 830 service members, including active-duty soldiers and members of the National Guard and reserve units from Indiana, South Carolina, West Virginia and Oregon, assigned to secure the water treatment plant, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Sodium dichromate is not a mild irritant. It is an extreme carcinogen. In November 2009, at age 52, Gentry died of cancer. The VA affirmed two months later that his death was service-related.

In November, a jury found KBR, the military's largest contractor, guilty of negligence in the poisoning of a dozen soldiers, and ordered the company to pay $85 million in damages. Jurors found KBR knew both of the presence and toxicity of the chemical. Other lawsuits against KBR are pending.

KBR, however, says taxpayers should be on the hook for the verdict, as well as more than $15 million the company has spent in its failed legal defense, according to court documents and attorneys involved with the case.

KBR's contract with the U.S. to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure after the 2003 invasion includes an indemnity agreement protecting the company from legal liability, KBR claims in court filings. That agreement, KBR insists, means the federal government must pay the company's legal expenses plus the verdict won by 12 members of the Oregon National Guard who were exposed to the toxin at the Qarmat Ali water treatment plant.

The military disagrees. A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contracting officer told KBR in November 2011 that litigation costs "are not covered by the indemnity agreement."

The public doesn’t know what the indemnity agreement actually says because the military considers it classified. Until recently, the veterans exposed to the toxin couldn’t know either, nor could attorneys at the Department of Justice, who were left battling the contract in the dark, according to a source there.

Michael Doyle, a Houston-based lawyer who helped the successful suit against KBR, told The Huffington Post the military declassified the indemnification agreement on Dec. 21 and gave it to him under a protective order that banned him from sharing the language to parties not involved in the case. John A. Elolf, a spokesman for KBR, confirmed the declassification of the agreement and said the contractor also was prevented from providing a copy. HuffPost has requested the document under the Freedom of Information Act from the Corps of Engineers. Read on...

DOWNLOADS: (77)

PLAYS: (294)

Embed

In case anyone missed it, there was actually another Republican debate this Saturday, this time sponsored by Citizen Link (formerly Focus on the Family Action) and moderated by Republican pollster Frank Luntz. C-SPAN was initially scheduled to air the debate and apparently reversed its decision due to budgetary reasons.

Here's Newt beating the war drums for Iran and pretending we don't send mercenaries such as Blackwater, now called Xe to go fight our wars for us and that we're somehow the only country on earth that heaven forbid has family members dying in wars during this Saturday's debate.

h/t Dave for the video

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (145)

PLAYS: (433)

Embed

John wrote about whistle-blower Bunnatine "Bunny" Greenhouse back in 2005 and sadly this woman's story has fallen completely off the radar, while in the mean time, war profiteer Dick Cheney is allowed to come on the air day after day and not be held to account for his helping his former company, Halliburton, fleece the American taxpayers.

Kudos to Maddow for shedding some more light on the story again during her and Richard Engel's two hour documentary, Day of Destruction, Decade of War.

More video on Halliburton's war profiteering and Greenhouse below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (169)

PLAYS: (404)

Embed

With our economy in a state where everyone in Washington DC is claiming that we must all "share the sacrifice" in order to get our budget deficit in hand, I have to wonder what this fiasco cost us. In a news cycle dominated understandably by the coverage of what's going on in Japan, I give Rachel Maddow credit for making at least a small amount of time for this and not allowing it to go completely under the radar.

I already posted about this at Video Cafe last month -- American Being Held for Shootings in Pakistan Worked as Blackwater CIA Contractor.

Here's the latest.

CIA contractor Raymond Davis freed after ‘blood money’ payment:

Pakistan’s decision Wednesday to release a CIA contractor accused of killing two men resolved a standoff that threatened to damage diplomatic relations between Islamabad and Washington, but it triggered new protests in Pakistan that reflected rising hostility from the United States’ key counterterrorism ally.

Raymond A. Davis was freed from a jail in Lahore after relatives of the Pakistani victims received as much as $2.3 million in “blood money” compensation.

Davis, a CIA security guard, was pardoned and flown to a U.S. facility in Kabul, where he was to be examined and questioned about his treatment before returning to the United States.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed gratitude to the victims’ families in Pakistan and said that the Justice Department has begun an investigation of the shooting that led to Davis’s arrest in Lahore on Jan. 27.

Clinton insisted that the United States had not made any payment to the families or agreed to reimburse the Pakistani government. But other U.S. officials signaled that Washington had endorsed the “blood money” payments and that it expects to reimburse Pakistani authorities, who had led an effort in recent weeks to persuade the Pakistani families to accept cash in return for dropping the case.

“We expect to receive a bill,” a U.S. official said.

Read on...