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Two weeks ago, when I first posted my
interview with Ben Carter, many people applauded him for
having the courage to come forward and talk about his first-hand
experience in Iraq with Halliburton subsidiary KBR. He described, in
great detail, KBR's negligence in their contract to provide safe
non-potable water to the troops. Hundreds and hundreds responded by
e-mailing DoD Chief Financial Officer Tina Jonas, telling her not to
give KBR another penny of the government's money until a full public
investigation was fulfilled. Note: After receiving an influx of emails from activists, Ms. Jonas blocked her email address. We have now made the action into a petition which will be delivered to her.
We also shared Ben's testimony on the Brave New Films documentary, Iraq For Sale:
Not everyone was supportive. One
angry young man responded negatively on the blogs. He said I was
presenting heresy as fact, and accused me of not providing enough
evidence to back up Ben's claims. I guess he wasn't convinced of
Ben's story, even though it perfectly aligned with previous reports
in the press, ranging from the breaking of the dirty water story
to Senator Clinton's push for an investigation of KBR.
Well if it wasn't clear to everyone already, Ben Carter does
not just talk the talk he walks the walk. And today, for the first
time, we can show you that he's willing to put his accusations and
evidence before a court. Last week, I received an email from Ben that
said: “Here's the federal complaint now made public for the first
time. I'd like to see this distributed far and wide.” That is why I
am posting a link to where I've uploaded the PDF of the entire text
of the federal complaint on the Progressive Future website.
Unfortunately, in that same e-mail, Ben broke some bad news.
He informed me that, because his case against Halliburton and KBR is
pending, his lawyers have asked him not to give any more public
statements. So I'll have to renege on my promise to deliver a
breaking news story about this scandal in the form of a blog written
by Ben.
But Ben's complaint speaks volumes. In case you don't
want to wade through the legal jargon, I've pulled out a few
highlights:
* In 2001, the Department of Defense awarded KBR
a contract for supplying potable and non-potable water to military
bases, and was made responsible for chlorinating/testing all water
stations three time daily.
* At Camp Ramadi, where Carter was
stationed, the base got its water from a point in the Euphrates River
which was less than 2 miles downstream from a from a human sewage
discharge point which was contaminated with many disease-causing
organisms, including “total coliform, E. coli, and other bacteria,
to viruses and hardy protazoa.”
* Carter was hired by
KBR and arrived at Camp Ramadi in January, 2005, and was promoted to
acting water purification foreman in March 2005. After a fellow
employee reported that he had seen an infestation in a toilet, Carter
inspected the toilet and found larvae swimming around in it. He then
did a chlorination test of each of the water points at the camp, and
found no chlorination to be present.
* Carter then received
an email from a KBR worker on leave that KBR had, in fact, exposed an
entire military base to water which was roughly 2x more contaminated
than the raw river water. The worker said that there had been no
testing or decontamination present for the entire life of the camp.
* Carter then found out that not only had KBR not been
testing or chlorinating the water, but they had also used the
discarded wastewater from the reverse-osmosis purification process
and supplied it to the camp as its non-potable water supply.
*
(This part was reported on in Carter's previous blog): when Carter
confronted KBR site manager, Susan Raku-Williams, about the problem
and was told that the military was none of their concern (even though
logistical support of the military was the basis on which KBR was
awarded its contract.
* Carter also learned that the
water testing kits which included apparatuses necessary for measuring
chlorine, had never been present for the entirety of the time that
Camp Ramadi existed, meaning that chlorination had never occurred at
Ramadi.
So why is the DOJ dragging its feet? Again, Ben
can't speak to that right now, and I can't speak for him. But I can
tell you what I think. Consider just a few of these quotes from
people involved with this story and those following it on the Web:
“During the nearly 4 years of war, the Department of
Justice has failed to move aggressively enough in prosecuting fraud
in Iraq. Today,
the Inspectors General before us have opened hundreds of
investigations...but so far, the U.S. Justice Department has only
brought eight criminal cases involving 25 individuals over the last 3
years. The crimes in a number of these cases were committed by
employees of Kellogg, Brown & Root, one of the largest
contractors in Iraq--as I said, a wholly owned subsidiary of
Halliburton. In these cases, the employees have admitted to receiving
kickbacks, inflating costs, embezzling money, and stealing millions
from the American people. But so far, the Justice Department has
brought no legal action, civil or criminal, against KBR or
Halliburton.”
-Sen. Patrick Leahy, Senate Hearing: “Combating
War Profiteering” 3/20/2007
“[The
Republican-run DOJ] deliberately bottleneck cases that would be
harmful to their corporate contributors.”
-Dday on Blogger.com, 7/02/2008
“Last September, Senator Leahy asked why the Justice
Department was not intervening in this category of cases. We're still
waiting for the answer that we all know: because the orgy of greed
and war profiteering are being enjoyed by friends of the Bush
administration like Halliburton and KBR.”
-Jessalyn Raddack,
Daily Kos Post, 7/02/2008
And there you have it. Ben didn't come right out and say that
the DOJ was dragging its feet for political purposes, but he did
mention he got the feeling that the DOJ didn't want this case to see
the light of day.
I'll leave you with a couple of quotes I've
pulled from my email correspondence with Ben:
“I really
want to stress what I feel is most important, that somebody notifies
ALL the soldiers and contractors who were exposed to this dangerous
water at the various bases in Iraq.”
“I waited silently
for the DOJ to bring Halliburton into court and demand a refund for
ALL the money they had billed our government for providing unsafe
water to our troops. Only to have the DOJ file motions for extensions
month after month. I guess what I'm getting at is this, if the DOJ
won't protect the United States government and taxpayers from
Halliburton, who will?”
You can help Ben take a stand by
signing our petition which we will deliver to DoD Chief Financial
Officer, Tina Jonas, asking her to withhold KBR's payment until a
full public investigation is pursued from beginning to end.
