Yesterday, in Part II of this five-part series, I shared my friend Rachel's experiences in Iraq with having to shower in dirty, contaminated water provided to the troops by private contractor and former Halliburton subsidiary, KBR. This story followed Rachel's recollection of the grossly higher paychecks the contractors were receiving for the same work as the military personnel, a sick twist of irony if you consider how poorly the contractors were doing the jobs they are paid six-figure incomes to perform.
While the firsthand testimony of her experiences shocked and angered me, the findings of the investigations that followed truly made me disgusted:
To
your knowledge, was KBR ever notified of the suspicions with the
water?
I never
[considered] that the water was unmonitored, however since coming
home I have learned more about what went wrong. On May 13, 2005
(about a month after we moved to the camp) KBR’s Theatre Water
Quality Manager authored a report regarding the water in Camp Ramadi.
The then-water purification manager, Ben Carter, reportedly followed
up on a complaint that there was larvae in one of the toilets. After
discovering that it was true, he immediately tested for chlorine in
water points, and found that none was present. He testified in
January 2006 for a Senate Democratic Policy Committee Hearing that
after telling site management to inform the military to chlorinate
their water, he was told by the KBR site manager that the military
was none of his concern. “I was ordered to concern myself only with
the health and safety of KBR personnel.”
At the time of the
report, this oversight was still continuing. In his testimony, Ben
Carter stated that he knew the issues with the water continued at
least through September 2005. The report also states: “This event
should be considered a NEAR MISS as the consequences of these actions
could have been VERY SEVERE resulting in mass sickness or
death.”
Upon reading further into the report, [I discovered
that the water] was actually twice as polluted going into our showers
as it would have been had we taken it directly from the river. This
was because they took the concentrated wastewater from the reverse
osmosis purification process and, instead of dumping it, they used it
for our non-potable water. The report concludes that the military is
required to acquire a discharge permit for the concentrated waste
stream, which explains [the danger in using concentrated wastewater]
for non potable consumption. Further intensifying this problem was
the “blatant disregard” for the disinfection of the wastewater
with chlorine.
The Dept. of Defense released the Inspector
General Report on the water problems and found that not only was
water contaminated in Camp Ramadi from October 13, 2004 to May 26,
2005 (a date which I believe to be inaccurate, as the water quality
did not seem to change during my time showering in it until December
2005), water was also contaminated at [many other camps].
Carter
concluded his testimony at the oversight hearing by saying, “I’m
here today because I believe that supporting the troops has to be
more than a slogan. Our men and women overseas deserve the best our
taxpayer dollars can buy, and it saddens me to report that we’re
falling short on something as simple and essential as providing them
with clean, safe water.”
Where to begin? Larvae in communally-used toilets is bad enough, but it can be passed off as an isolated incident. The fact that there was absolutely no chlorinated disinfection process being used in any of the water points hows you the ethical decay behind contractor practices. This was a deliberate decision to cut corners at the expense of the health and security of our troops.
What's more disturbing is that it appears this attitude was not just some unspoken practice; the blatant disregard for the well-being of the troops was an explicitly stated policy coming from higher-ups within the corporation. So let me get this straight: KBR was hired to perform services intended to support and protect the troops, yet it is the stated policy of KBR to treat the interest of the troops as an afterthought, and even an obstacle in their ventures to capitalize on the war.
These dangers are the saddening result of corporate interests having an influence over foreign policy and being allowed to thrive unregulated and unchecked. Stories like these show the true priorities of the officials shaping the war: profit over security. Yet again, these are the folks to will defend their practices on the platform of being strong on national security. Yet, despite the lack of reporting on these atrocities in the mainstream media, Americans are starting to realize that, when push comes to shove, these leaders of ours will always choose their own financial interests over the security of our nation.
Tomorrow I will post an interview I had with Josh, another soldier stationed at Camp Ramadi, and share his story of his struggle to receive VA care for a traumatic brain injury and PTSD.
