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KBR Guilty Of “Negligent Homicide” In Soldier’s Death Says Army
Military contractor KBR is guilty of negligent homicide in a soldier’s death according to the Army:
An Army investigation called the electrocution death of a U.S. soldier in Iraq a “negligent homicide” caused by military contractor KBR Inc. and two of its supervisors, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.
An Army criminal investigator said the manner of death for Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, 24, of Pittsburgh, has been changed from accidental to negligent homicide because the contractor failed to ensure that “qualified electricians and plumbers” worked on the barracks where Maseth died, according to the document.
I’ve been a pretty staunch defender of KBR and Halliburton because democrats always try and scapegoat them for everything, but this case is absolutely horrible and indefensible. Our soldiers have enough to worry about in Iraq without surviving a mission only to be electrocuted to death in the shower.
As many as 18 servicemen have died as a result of half-ass wiring thanks to KBR. That is an absolute outrage and since the democrats are seething to investigate something they should investigate that. KBR has overcharged the government in Iraq with impunity and now it’s killing our servicemen.
KBR has done some good work in Iraq, but I’ve come to believe there really hasn’t been sufficient oversight by Congress. The problem is that KBR does so much in Iraq and Afghanistan that the U.S. government can’t really cancel their contracts. Everything would grind to a stand still without them.
I guess you could call them — too big to fail. (I know, not again!)
Texas Woman: Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR
A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.
Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave.
Now this lawsuit actually sounds like it has some legs, because the State Department actually intervened and rescued her from the shipping container!
“It felt like prison,” says Jones, who told her story to ABC News as part of an upcoming “20/20″ investigation. “I was upset; I was curled up in a ball on the bed; I just could not believe what had happened.”
Finally, Jones says, she convinced a sympathetic guard to loan her a cell phone so she could call her father in Texas.
“I said, ‘Dad, I’ve been raped. I don’t know what to do. I’m in this container, and I’m not able to leave,’” she said. Her father called their congressman, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas.
“We contacted the State Department first,” Poe told ABCNews.com, “and told them of the urgency of rescuing an American citizen” — from her American employer.
Poe says his office contacted the State Department, which quickly dispatched agents from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to Jones’ camp, where they rescued her from the container.
According to her lawsuit, Jones was raped by “several attackers who first drugged her, then repeatedly raped and injured her, both physically and emotionally.”
Army doctors performed a rape kit on Ms. Jones which clearly showed that she had been raped both vaginally and anally. However, the rape kit mysteriously disappeared after it was handed over to KBR security officers.
Over two years later, the Justice Department has brought no criminal charges in the matter. Legal experts say Jones’ alleged assailants will likely never face a judge and jury, due to an enormous loophole that has effectively left contractors in Iraq beyond the reach of United States law.
I have been a strident defender of allowing contractors to be immune from prosecution in Iraq. I don’t really lose any sleep over Blackwater having to shoot one or more people for whatever reason.
Immunity for “contractor on Iraqi” crime is one thing, but I never considered that immunity would extend to “contractor on contractor” crimes. Or more specifically “American on American” crimes. Shooting an Iraqi in a war zone is one thing, but American contractors gang-raping a 20-year old American woman is f*cking outrageous.
Jones went on to say that KBR and Halliburton created a “boys will be boys” atmosphere in the barracks, which created an unsafe environment for females. The fact that KBR/Halliburton would even consider making the women share the same barracks with a bunch of “alpha male” contractors is almost too much to believe. If they chose to bunk with the guys so be it, but their should have been separate quarters available.
The honest to god truth is that regardless of sleeping quarters, American contractors should act like professionals rather than a bunch of rabid animals. It’s this kind of crap that brings dishonor and shame to everyone who’s over there trying to do good work.
There is absolutely no legitimate reason for extending immunity for crimes against co-workers. I guess that means that a contractor could shoot a U.S. Soldier and be immune, or kill a Congressman and be immune. This is getting to be a sick situation and if a little bit of immunity is gonna become this kind of immunity, then clearly there should be NO immunity.
This entire story will be featured on an upcoming episode of “20/20.”
-Chris Jones
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