I am one of the lucky ones. All I brought back from military service is a partial hearing loss and constant tinnitus that I have learned to mostly ignore. Some of my brothers in arms didn’t come home at all. Many returned to a lifetime of horror and suffering. Sometimes it was a cruel legacy spread to their children through birth defects. Our leaders and their friends the war profiteers denied the Agent Orange story for many years after we left southeast Asia, but were finally forced to own up. Then for the next military extravaganza, the troops returned infected with Gulf War Syndrome. It only took 17 years for the government to recognize that soldier complaints were indeed legitimate.
A few days ago, I noticed a news item in our local paper about a new outrage visited by our most recent excellent military adventure upon soldier, civilian contractor and the Iraqi people. Guess who’s behind this one? Why its our old friend KBR, son of Halliburton. What a surprise!
Democracy Now has the story
Sixteen Indiana National Guard soldiers have sued the Houston-based defense contractor KBR, saying the company knowingly allowed them to be exposed to a toxic chemical in Iraq in 2003. The soldiers were providing security for KBR during repairs of a water treatment plant in southern Iraq shortly after the US invasion. The suit claims the site was contaminated for six months by hexavalent chromium, “one of the most potent carcinogens” known to man. It alleges that KBR knew the plant was contaminated but concealed the danger from civilian workers and soldiers.
Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales interviewed soldier Jody Aistrop this week along with Michael Doyle, lead counsel for the Guardsmen. Strangely, KBR declined the invitation.
JODY AISTROP: The main one was the bloody nose. Your eyes would burn. You would get a rash, like on your arms or your legs. And actually, my rash just cleared up like three months ago. And it turned into lesions once I got home.
You might remember the chemical as the culprit from the movie “Erin Brockovich”.
A related chemical exposure story also involving KBR was first broken by Farah Stockman last March, writing for the Boston Globe. More better living through chemistry.
WASHINGTON – When the American team arrived in Iraq in the summer of 2003 to repair the Qarmat Ali water injection plant, supervisors told them the orange, sand-like substance strewn around the looted facility was just a “mild irritant,” workers recall. Edward Blacke, a safety representative on the project, said he tried to raise safety concerns but was told not to get involved.
The workers got it on their hands and clothing every day while racing for 2 1/2 months to meet a deadline to get the plant, a crucial part of Iraq’s oil infrastructure, up and running.
But the chemical turned out to be sodium dichromate, a substance so dangerous that even limited exposure greatly increases the risk of cancer. Soon, many of the 22 Americans and 100-plus Iraqis began to complain of nosebleeds, ulcers, and shortness of breath. Within weeks, nearly 60 percent exhibited symptoms of exposure, according to the minutes of a meeting of project managers from KBR, the Houston-based construction company in charge of the repairs.
Now, nine Americans are accusing KBR, then a subsidiary of the oil conglomerate Halliburton, of knowingly exposing them to the deadly substance and failing to provide them with the protective equipment needed to keep them safe.
Occupational Health News Roundup has more and mentions a Democratic Policy Committee hearing chaired by Senator Byron Dorgan in June.
Back in March, a Boston Globe article by Farah Stockman broke the news that workers who’d been cleaning up the Qarmat Ali water injection plant in Iraq had been exposed to something that they were told was only a mild irritant – but which was, in fact, the dangerous substance sodium dichromate. After that report, Senator Byron Dorgan began investigating the situation, and chaired a Democratic Policy Committee hearing last week on the experiences of soldiers assigned to guard the plant. Stockman reports on the hearing testimony:
“These soldiers were bleeding from the nose, spitting blood,” said Danny Langford, an equipment technician from Texas brought to work at the Qarmat Ali Water treatment plant in 2003. “They were sick.”
“Hundreds of American soldiers at this site were contaminated” while guarding the plant, Langford said, including members of the Indiana National Guard.
Langford is one of nine Americans who accuse KBR, the lead contractor on the Qarmat Ali project and one of the largest defense contractors in Iraq, of knowingly exposing them to sodium dichromate, an orange, sandlike chemical that is a potentially lethal carcinogen. Specialists say even short-term exposure to the chemical can cause cancer, depress an individual’s immune system, attack the liver, and cause other ailments.
This hearing is “one among several organized to hold contractors accountable for alleged malfeasance in Iraq.”
Senator Dogan is quoted in a follow up article in the Boston Globe
“It is almost unbelievable,” the senator said during the hearing. “We know that there has been exposure of workers and soldiers to a deadly chemical, and there has been, in my judgment, lack of accountability by those who caused the exposure and lack of accountability at the Department of Defense, regrettably.”
Support our troops? Yeah, right and you believe that, I’ve got a bridge I’ll make you a helluva deal on in Brooklyn.