Military was sold lead-tainted fabric for tents

[JoFerret]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/politics/24TENT.html

WASHINGTON, March 23 — Almost three-fourths of the camouflage-patterned tents, tarpaulins and jeep covers used by the United States military throughout the world are made from fabric manufactured with toxic lead compounds that can cause a variety of illnesses including cancer, according to undisputed evidence in a lawsuit being tried mostly behind closed doors in federal court.

<snip>

"We determined that even though it was out there, the products were safe for continued use without restriction," said Maj. Michael Shavers, a Pentagon spokesman. "There is no risk to the troops."

<snip>

The discovery and investigation of the material began after a Virginia resident, Keith Ayers, filed a citizen's complaint 14 months ago against BondCote charging that it was secretly using lead chromate to lower its costs in providing camouflage fabrics to meet military specifications. Most of the filings in the suit have been sealed by the court.
<more>

[tabasco]

1. I didn't know Haliburton sold tents.

Learn something new every day ;)

[THUNDER HANDS]

2. between the tents and the DU munitions

Its a wonder every soldier doesn't have some form of cancer.

[DulceDecorum]

6. The Past (and the present?)

Early 1973 on
The recently-formed Rhodesian Selous Scouts adopt and adapt British counterinsurgency techniques used in Kenya and Malaya by experimenting with new types of weapons, including CW and BW. They seek to develop poisons to impregnate toxins into blue jeans used by guerrillas as well as poison pens to assassinate guerrilla leaders, and make efforts to contaminate rivers and water supplies with chemical and biological agents. Rhodesia has one "rudimentary" CBW plant that receives outside aid from South Africa.
—Stephen Burgess and Helen Purkitt, The Rollback of South Africa's Biological Warfare Program (USAF Academy, Colorado: USAF Institute for National Security Studies, 2001), pp. 8-9.

1975-1 September 1978
The Selous Scouts set up a secret laboratory at the André Rabie barracks, to which three medical doctors from the regular Rhodesian Army are seconded. Large consignments of the denim clothing favored by guerrillas are purchased from middlemen and soaked in "steel vats containing a solution of odourless and colourless poisons" . Several prisoners are forcibly brought to the Mount Darwin Fort and apparently used as "human guinea pigs" to test the effects of the poison. The contaminated clothes are then supplied to guerrillas with the help of Reverend Arthur Kanodareki, a paid CIO agent, and somewhere between 67 and "many hundreds" of guerrillas then die after absorbing the poison through their skin. The program is terminated after the Special Branch commander learns of the deaths of innocent rural villagers to whom some the poisoned clothes had been sold by unscrupulous local agents, agents who had been recruited by the Scouts and the Special Branch and had been paid a Z1000 dollar bonus for each confirmed "guerrilla" death. Symptoms of intoxication are that after seven days, the victims develop a fever and start to bleed from the nose and mouth.
—Henrik Ellert, The Rhodesian Front War: Counter-Insurgency and Guerrilla War in Rhodesia, 1962-1980 (Gweru, Zimbabwe: Mambo Press, 1989), pp. 109-12; see also Jeremy Brickhill, "Zimbabwe's Poisoned Legacy: Secret War in Southern Africa," Covert Action Quarterly 43 (Winter 1992-93), p. 8; Ken Flower, Serving Secretly: An Intelligence Chief on Record. Rhodesia into Zimbabwe, 1964 to 1981 (London: John Murray, 1987), p. 137.

1978
An acid-impregnated t-shirt is mailed to the daughter of Donald Woods, the editor of the Daily Dispatch who was at this time trying to bring the men responsible for Steve Biko's death to justice. Woods blames the Security Police for this attack. The chemical used is Ninhydrin <2.2-dihydroxy-1.3-indandione>, an irritating powder used by the world's police forces to trace fingerprints on paper that stings on contact.
—Klaas de Jonge, "The Chemical Warfare Case," The (Secret) Truth Commission Files, November 1997, p. 4, <http://www.contrast.org/truth/html/chemical__biological_weapons.html>, citing Patrick Laurence, "'Death Squads' venomous trail," The Star (30 January, 1991); Chandré Gould and Peter Folb, Project Coast: Apartheid's Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 2002), p. 159.

1980
In "Operation Winter," with the collusion of British government monitors in Rhodesia, Rhodesian special operations assets are reportedly transferred covertly to South Africa. These assets supposedly include the Rhodesian SAS, the CIO and its agents, and the Selous Scouts, as well as black "mercenaries" and "the poisoners and their poisons," all of which are incorporated into the appropriate South African departments. British and American planes may have taken part in the transfer of men and equipment.
—Jeremy Brickhill, "Zimbabwe's Poisoned Legacy: Secret War in Southern Africa," Covert Action Quarterly 43 (Winter 1992-93), pp. 58-60.
http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/SAfrica/Chemical/2446.html

FBI SLOW ON ANTHRAX CASE. The FBI can nab Muslim converts on thin pretexts that they might be planning to blow up dirty bombs but they cannot seem to make inroads against the man suspected of sending anthrax-tainted letters that were sent to two Democratic senators and media personalities that resulted in at least six deaths last fall. Laura Rozen of The American Prospect (www.prospect.org) reported June 27 on a suspect who from 1975 to 1978 served with the US Army Institute for Military Assistance, based at Fort Bragg, N.C., while simultaneously, according to his resume, serving in the Rhodesian Special Air Squadron (SAS) and Selous Scouts, the counterinsurgency force of the former white supremacist regime. He attended medical school in Rhodesia from 1978 to 1985, and then moved to South Africa, where he completed various military-medical assignments while obtaining three master's degrees, studying for a doctoral degree, and practicing in a South African clinic. He now lives in Frederick, Md., and had access to the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) until early March.
http://www.populist.com/02.14.dispatches.html

The US Congress, which is now in the hands of some of the most rightwing and venal ideologues in its history, will probably not want to delve into America's secret labyrinth of bio-weapons progenitors and dispensers, especially since it involves a number of their ideological soul mates. The vitriol spewing from the mouths of the Congressional leadership is strictly reserved for gays, African Americans, the French, Hollywood liberals, the drug-addicted, and abortion rights advocates. As far as the rightwing leadership is concerned, there is no questioning the military, Justice Department, or the intelligence agencies. Those who dared are no longer in a position to do so. Senators Graham and Shelby are off of the Senate Intelligence Committee. They have been replaced by dupes and yes-men for Langley and Detrick.
http://www.newsinsider.org/madsta/a_product_of_bioeconomic_warfare.html

[mobuto]

3. BondCote Corporation

is owned by Stonebridge Partners, a private investment firm.

Stonebridge’s Partners include Michael S. Bruno, Jr., Harrison M. Wilson, Robert M. Raziano and Andrew A. Thomas. William G. Connors is a Principal in the Firm. Our Operating Partners, former executives from industry with long and successful careers managing a wide variety of businesses, include Thomas M. Isola, Gregory F. Goulette, Francis E. Novak and Michael A. Steinback. Phillip A. O’Reilly is our Operating Partner Emeritus.

Looking at the bios listed on the firm's prospectus, it seems all the principals are bona fide investment bankers. Anybody know anything different?

[Free_Thinking1]

4. Why am I sadly not surprised by this

I guess that is what happens when contracts go to the lowest bidder. Or the most politically connected cooperation if they happen to want in on the loot.

[mbperrin]

5. Damn those liberal activist judges! Always sealing court records so

that big business can't defend themselves in public!

</total delusion>

The bastards who think that this is OK should be forced to live under the same damn stuff!