Iraq Vets Blame KBR for Illnesses

[unhappycamper]

Iraq Vets Blame KBR for Illnesses
February 16, 2009
Houston Chronicle

Ten contractors and dozens of National Guardsmen -- including a dying senior officer -- allege that Houston-based KBR knowingly allowed them to be poisoned by cancer-causing chemicals at a Basra water plant where they were making repairs to keep Iraq's oil fields pumping during the war.

Allegations from the workers, six of whom live in or near Houston, are documented in a federal arbitration complaint pending in Houston and a related federal lawsuit filed in December by the guardsmen in Indiana.

Most of the KBR contractors were sent to Iraq around April 2003 as part of Operation Restore Iraqi Oil, a no-bid U.S. contract worth billions. Members of the U.S. Army National Guard, most from Indiana, escorted and guarded the workers.

KBR officials acknowledge that a dangerous anti-corrosive chemical was stored and spilled at the Qarmat Ali water plant just outside Basra. Under Saddam Hussein's regime, Iraqis used the chemical to keep pipes free of corrosion as river water from the plant was pumped to oil fields miles away.

The company said its own tests showed that "some areas of soil" contained hexavalent chromium -- a human carcinogen that is the same toxin associated with contaminated drinking water in California exposed by crusader Erin Brockovich.



Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/iraq-vets-blame-kbr-for-illnesses.html?col=1186032310810

[peacetalksforall]

1. Kick & Rec - especially in light of the new KBR contract just posted.