US Troops Accuse Iraq War Contractor In Toxic Exposure (KBR-lung cancer)

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Did Contractor Expose Troops To Toxin?
CBS Evening News Exclusive: American Soldiers Are Dying Of Lung Cancer - And May Have Been Knowingly Exposed


WASHINGTON, Dec. 22, 2008 | by Armen Keteyian


(CBS) The military contractor Kellogg Brown and Root, known as KBR, has won more than $28 billion in U.S. military contracts since the beginning of the Iraq war. KBR may be facing a new scandal. First, accusations its then-parent company Halliburton was given the lucrative contract. And later, allegations of shoddy construction oversight that resulted in Americans getting electrocuted. Now, some other American soldiers say the company knowingly put their lives at risk, CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian and investigative producer Laura Strickler exclusively report.

In April of 2003, James Gentry of the Indiana National Guard arrived in Southern Iraq to take command of more than 600 other guardsmen. Their job: protect KBR contractors working at a local water plant.

"We didn't question what we were doing, we just knew we had to provide a security service for the KBR," said Battalion Cmdr. Gentry.

Today James Gentry is dying from rare form of lung cancer. The result, he believes, of months of inhaling hexavalent chromium - an orange dust that's part of a toxic chemical found all over the plant.

At least one other Indiana guardsman has already died from lung cancer, and others are said to be suffering from tumors and rashes consistent with exposure to the deadly toxin.

"I'm a nonsmoker. I believe that I received this cancer from the southern oil fields in Iraq," he said.

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