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Making Money From Their Blood: Cheney's Former War-Profiteering Company Is Suing Veterans It Poisoned in Iraq
The legal battle began when the veterans, part of a contingent of 300 Oregon members of the National Guard, were sent to Iraq in 2003 by KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, which was run by former VP and current war criminal Cheney. The Guardsmen were tasked with providing security at Qarmat Ali water treatment plant. They were conveniently not told the site was full of the powerful corrosive hexavalent chromium, a highly toxic orange-yellow crystalline powder linked to lung cancer and breathing problems; it is banned in the U.S. but was omnipresent at the plant, stored in bags and drifting loose, sometimes visibly on soldiers' dinners. When they started having breathing and other health problems, their KBR bosses said they had "sand allergies" and not to worry. When the health issues kept escalating, a KBR safety manager finally shut the plant down.
In November 2012, a Portland jury found KBG negligent and awarded $85 million to the soldiers, ruling KBR showed "conscious indifference to (their) health, safety and welfare."
But the ever-greedy KBR didn't want to have to account for their behavior during a war that netted them $39 billion in profits, more than any other defense contractor; when he left as head of Halliburton in 2000, Cheney himself had earned $12.5 million, with $39 million more in stock options. KBR appealed the ruling, which was overturned on a bizarre technicality that found, not that KBR hadn't poisoned people, but that Oregon veterans had to sue the company in their home state of Texas.
Not content with that questionable legal victory, KBR took their corporate bullying and other scorched-earth tactics to a whole new level by filing a motion seeking $850,000 in legal fees from the sick veterans whose painful and likely dramatically shortened lives they've already ravaged.
The kicker: Even if they lose on appeal, KBR will likely get off scot-free thanks to an indemnity clause in their contract with the Defense Department, which would be held liable for any corporate malfeasance. Meaning that, once again, taxpayers would be left to bail out another massive amoral corporation guilty of greed, gross and in this case fatal negligence, and the blithe ruination of many lives.
originally posted by: stosh64
originally posted by: FyreByrd
This is a very one sided article -
Ya think?
I cant believe the spin and outright lies coming from both sides of the aisle.
Where do people find these partisan hack websites?
Keep up your rage, its just what they want.
originally posted by: stosh64
I cant believe the spin and outright lies coming from both sides of the aisle.
Where do people find these partisan hack websites?
Keep up your rage, its just what they want.
WASHINGTON — Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says.
A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.
The Defense Department's inspector general's report, which could be released as early as Monday, found water quality problems between March 2004 and February 2006 at three sites run by contractor KBR Inc., and between January 2004 and December 2006 at two military-operated locations.
It was impossible to link the dirty water definitively to all the illnesses, according to the report. But it said KBR's water quality "was not maintained in accordance with field water sanitary standards" and the military-run sites "were not performing all required quality control tests."
www.huffingtonpost.com...
20 Sept. 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 (HalliburtonWatch.org) -- Outrage overflowed on Capitol Hill this summer when members of Congress learned that Halliburton's dining halls in Iraq had repeatedly served spoiled food to unsuspecting troops. "This happened quite a bit," testified Rory Mayberry, a former food manager with Halliburton's KBR subsidiary.
But the outrage apparently doesn't end with spoiled food. Former KBR employees and water quality specialists, Ben Carter and Ken May, told HalliburtonWatch that KBR knowingly exposes troops and civilians to contaminated water from Iraq's Euphrates River. One internal KBR email provided to HalliburtonWatch says that, for "possibly a year," the level of contamination at one camp was two times the normal level for untreated water.
originally posted by: buddah6
I think that everyone needs to take a closer look at Halliburton. It has been around for a long time including my time in Vietnam. Their blue truck were everywhere. I found out that they were owned by a law group from Houston, Texas. This group also owned Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth.
The most interesting person on the board of directors was not Cheney...he was only a president for a short time but Ladybird Johnson the wife of the POTUS. I would suppose that this arrangement was to avoid a conflict of interest or the appearance of impropriety.
originally posted by: buddah6
I think that everyone needs to take a closer look at Halliburton. It has been around for a long time including my time in Vietnam. Their blue truck were everywhere. I found out that they were owned by a law group from Houston, Texas. This group also owned Bell Helicopter in Fort Worth.
The most interesting person on the board of directors was not Cheney...he was only a president for a short time but Ladybird Johnson the wife of the POTUS. I would suppose that this arrangement was to avoid a conflict of interest or the appearance of impropriety.
originally posted by: buddah6
a reply to: crazyewok
When you are at war the most supreme goal is to survive you tour of duty. This is an easy concept.
I discovered the Halliburton information when talking to a Bell Helicopter tech. rep. several years after my active duty service. Since then nothing surprises me when dealing with the government. ept.