An article in the Chicago Tribune reveals that more than 770 civilian contractors working for American companies have died in Iraq since the start of the war. The figures are loosely tracked by an obscure office inside the U.S. Department of Labor and include contractors hired as truck drivers, cooks, laundry workers security guards among others. The U.S. war dead increases by 25% when adding these deaths to the more widely publicized military toll.

HalliburtonWatch reports that contracting giant Halliburton is moving its corporate headquarters from the United States to the United Arab Emirates, which will help it avoid taxes and accountability from federal investigators. The company is also in the process of disposing all its ownership in the scandal-plagued KBR, "notorious for overcharging the military and serving contaminated food and water to the troops in Iraq." The article goes on to report that this isn't the first time Halliburton has used tactics to avoid accountability and restrictions:

Halliburton has also used its operational structure for contracts in Iraq and post-Katrina -- especially multiple layers of subcontractors -- to elude oversight and accountability to taxpayers. Read more at HalliburtonWatch.

ThinkProgress.org also writes about the move, and reports that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) told ABC News that Halliburton's move was:

"corporate greed at it's worst. This is an insult to U.S. soldiers and taxpayers. At the same time they'll be avoiding U.S. taxes, I'm sure they won't stop insisting on taking their profits in cold hard U.S. cash."

Jeremy Scahill and Garrett Ordower ask today on TheNation.com if KBR will be forced to repay the U.S. government $400 million because it hired private security forces in Iraq (such as Blackwater USA). This practice violated KBR's contract with the government, which prohibited the company from hiring security forces outside the Army in an effort to curb wasting taxpayer dollars.

From TheNation.com:

"[The scandle] began with one of the most iconic incidents of the Iraq War: the March 31, 2004, ambush of four Blackwater contractors in the Sunni city of Falluja. The men were burned, dragged through the streets and strung from a bridge. For many in Congress--and the broader population--it was the first they had heard of private soldiers operating in the war zone. Finding out who exactly they were working for in Falluja that day would take nearly three years.

As Waxman investigated the circumstances surrounding the ambush, one fact in particular bothered him: The contract the Blackwater men were working under indicated that they were ultimately servicing KBR. For its part, KBR initially denied this, and Waxman became increasingly frustrated that for eighteen months he could not get the military, KBR or any of the companies involved to explain whom taxpayers were ultimately paying for the Blackwater security services, and how much."

Charlie Cray blogs today on the Huffington Post about the fundamental question of "whether outsourcing and privatization undermines the very purpose of government, whether it's essential services or military missions":

The appalling conditions at Walter Reed -- the supposed "crown jewel" of veterans hospital facilities -- not only punctures for good the Bush/Cheney high-handed claim to "support our troops" but like Iraq and New Orleans, reveals what's more important -- helping their friends make money off others' misfortune.

Halliburton Watch reports today that a previously undisclosed memo criticized the army's decision to outsource Walter Reed's patient care services to IPA Worldwide Services, saying it caused an exodus of "highly skilled and experienced personnel" and went on to conclude that "patient care services are at risk of mission failure."

The article goes on to report that IPA is run by former Halliburton executive Al Neffgen, who has a history of choosing profit over providing sanity treatment for U.S. troops:

Neffgen was a senior executive with Halliburton when it was serving contaminated food at military dining halls and providing the troops in Iraq with bathing water soiled with human fecal matter. Nevertheless, in January 2006, the army gave Neffgen's company a $120 million "cost-plus" contract for support services and facilities management at Walter Reed hospital.

The News & Observer reports that the Army plans to dock KBR $400 million for improperly using private security companies in Iraq. KBR's parent company, Halliburton, has already had $20 million withheld for the same reason. Halliburton's governmental contract stated they were to not to use private security companies, but rather use the Army for security instead - a move designed to significantly save millions of taxpayer dollars. Read more.

Charlie Cray writes on the Huffington Post about the one investigation that might come back to haunt Vice President (and former Halliburton CEO) Dick Cheney -- the Halliburton Nigeria bribery case:

"A new ripple in the case was revealed today in the company's annual 10-K report to shareholders, where (starting on page 55) they update the story, revealing that the Nigeria bribes, some of which occurred on Cheney's watch as CEO), may have been just the tip of the iceberg."

An article today from the Virginia-Pilot reports on a two year investigation which is finally exposing the trail of taxpayer dollars which paid Blackwater during the time of the Fallujah massacre in March 2004. Extensive research by the Army has uncovered that Blackwater was hired by two intermediary companies - Regency Hotel & Hospital Co., and ESS Worldwide Services with KBR being at the top of the chain, ultimately billing the government. Last week federal investigators uncovered $10 billion of $57 billion squandered on overcharges or unreported expenses. Virginia-Pilot:

A January 2005 audit of a different Blackwater contract, with the State Department, found that Blackwater was charging the government separately for "drivers" and "security specialists," who were in fact the same people. The audit also found that Blackwater was improperly including profit in its overhead costs, resulting "not only in a duplication of profit, but also a pyramiding of profit because, in effect, Blackwater is applying profit to profit."

During congressional hearings on Iraq war profiteering last week, the governments top 3 auditors found $10 billion in overcharges or unaccounted spending out of $57 billion in private contracts. Keith Olbermann interviewed Robert on the issue of Iraq war profiteering. Robert explained:

"We have to call into question the very core issue: yes they're stealing, but even above and beyond that, should people be profiting - should corporations be making millions and millions when Iraqis and Americans are being killed? That to me goes to the heart of the issue and we need to start asking that harder and harder."

KBR initially told Kristen Martin that her father, Donald Tolfree, and another man were killed by a roadside bomb while they were traveling in the wrong convoy in Iraq. She later learned U.S. military personnel shot and killed Tolfree, who was driving a KBR truck, near a checkpoint at Camp Anaconda in Balad, Iraq. The other man was not killed, but injured.

"You lied to me," Martin said. "You misled me from the beginning, and through all of it, and I've gotten nothing but a bunch of bull from these people since then."

Upon discovering Halliburton had hired Blackwater USA for armed security guards in Iraq, the U.S. Army announced it will be withholding $19.6 million due to a potential breach of contract. The Army's $16 billion contract forbids Halliburton from using private armed guards. The announcement came on Wednesday during congressional hearings on Iraq war profiteering by private contractors. Read more details on this story.

A CBS study on a military recreation center in Iraq has uncovered KBR not only charges soldiers each time they use the facility, but have increased their profits by charging each time a soldier uses "a computer, pool table, ping pong padles and even towels" the Lake Sun Leader reported yesterday.

The article goes on to point out this type of waste has been stopped before:

The Truman Committee saved the government about $15 billion (when a billion dollars was serious money even to the federal government) and saved thousands of military lives by forcing contractors to do what they should have been doing all along.

Halliburton continues its horrific treatment of those who work for them.

From the Houston Chronicle, January 1 2007:

This much she knows: Nearly a year ago, on New Year's Day, her husband was riding in a bus on an air base in the western region of Anbar province in Iraq. A seven-ton U.S. military truck sped through an intersection on the base, she said, and smashed into the bus. Her husband, Michael Williams, a mechanic working for a subcontractor of Houston-based Halliburton, was killed along with three others.

That much Monique Williams, 24, has known for a year. But she needs more. She wants to hold an official military report that explains why that truck hit the bus and crushed her husband's skull. She needs to know, she said, if anybody was punished for the collision that killed her 23-year-old husband before he could see his only son.

News & Observer:

Taxpayers paid exorbitant prices for Blackwater's services, U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman wrote in a letter to outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Waxman said it wasn't clear precisely how much taxpayers overpaid because the Army hasn't provided answers to questions first raised two years ago,

The California congressman said that Blackwater's services were not just pricey, but prohibited, because the Army never authorized Blackwater or any other Halliburton subcontractors to guard convoys or carry weapons. Houston-based Halliburton has been paid at least $16 billion to provide food, lodging and other support for troops in Iraq, and $2.4 billion to work on Iraqi oil infrastructure.

Waxman demanded "whether and how the Army intends to recover taxpayer funds paid to Halliburton and Blackwater for services prohibited under [Halliburton's] contract."

Washington Post:

At a certain point, justice delayed is justice denied," said Patrick Burns, whose nonprofit group promotes use of the False Claims Act, which dates to the Civil War. "People are going to say, 'When were we in the Balkans?'

The financial press is starting to take notice that Halliburton/KBR could "face greater scrutiny as its biggest critic in Congress, Democratic Representative Henry Waxman, takes charge of the House's chief oversight committee. "

New York Times

Investigations led by a Republican lawyer named Stuart W. Bowen Jr. in Iraq have sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces.

And tucked away in a huge military authorization bill that President Bush signed two weeks ago is what some of Mr. Bowen’s supporters believe is his reward for repeatedly embarrassing the administration: a pink slip.

Frida Berrigan explores why Congress has done little to hold war profiteers accountable. Read the article at In These Times →

Youtube link, Quicktime download

Anyone exposed to water provided by Halliburton/KBR in Iraq should learn how to get tested for illnesses caused by contaminated water.

William Shaddock left a comment on the blog. (Read it here) He claims to have "a personal relationship with the Lesar family", the CEO of Halliburton, so maybe this is a way to get a response from David Lesar. Here's what I e-mailed Mr. Shaddock:

Dear Mr. Shaddock,

We at Brave New Films appreciate your responding, it is more then we have been able to get Mr. Lesar or Halliburton to do over months of asking for them to express their opinion. We assume they refuse to participate because they want to downplay attention to the over 100 million dollars Mr. Lesar has made since the start of the war! Well it wont work, check with Lee Scott and Walmart.

We have spent 6 months of intense research and we welcome any specific examples of factual inaccuracies you or Mr. Lesar or Halliburton can provide us.

The issue is a basic one, and again, hope that Mr. Lesar and Haliburton will participate in this democratic debate, in time of war should any person or corporation be allowed to profiteer?

We do not expect perfection, but $45 for coke and $100 for laundry is about, "legal stealing" as one of the Halliburton truck drivers says.

We have more information coming about Mr. Lesar and his profiteering and we hope he will participate in a fair and democratic debate about his behavior in time of war.

Outrageous.

The Texas federal judge is basically saying that since the military is responsible for protecting Halliburton's convoys, that Halliburton has zero responsibility for their safety. No matter what happens, Halliburton is free and clear. Even if there is provable, gross negligence as seen in the film.

Oh, and the military can't be held accountable for it either. The Republican Congress refuses to hear it and Democrats hold hearings without any power to do anything.

Senator Byron Dorgan: "This appears to give very broad immunity to the contractor. That's an unfortunate result from the standpoint of the rights you would expect an American citizen to have. It's very troubling."

Scott Allen, the lawyer representing the families: "Seriously, where do United States citizens turn to be heard? I thought we were fighting this war, and all wars, to preserve the rights of citizens, including the right to trial by jury within our judicial system. This, in my view, is a sad day not only for the families and men I represent but for our future. We strongly disagree with the decision and intend to appeal."

The Washington Post covered yesterday's hearing, and Halliburton's home town paper, the Houston Chronicle, picked up the we'll-give-you-a-medal-if-you-don't-sue story.

Cathy Mann, Halliburton's head of PR, responded: "It was never KBR's intention to utilize any such release to preclude claims by current or former employees against the company."

Which makes no sense at all because that's exactly what the medical release form did, and worse, they used the Presidential Medal of Freedom as bait to get him to sign it.

As Sen. Dorgan put it "That is almost an unbelievable piece of paper."

I suppose the only reason it was almost unbelievable is that he'd already heard an hour of testimony.

UPDATE: What Charlie Cray said.

Halliburton gave Ray Stannard, one of the truck drivers who survived the Good Friday Massacre, a medical release to sign. All boilerplate, except for this:

I agree that in consideration for the application for a Defense of Freedom Medal on my behalf that. . . I hereby release, aquit and discharge KBR, all KBR employees, the military, and any of their representatives. . . with respect to and from any and all claims and any and all causes of action, of any kind or character, whether now known or unknown, I may have against any of them which exist as of the date of this authorization. . . . This release also applies to any claims brought by any person or agency or class action under which I may have a right or benefit.

Watch live online: Windows Media and Real Media. UPDATE: C-SPAN has the full thing archived in Real Media.

2:12pm: Senator Dorgan is listing all the ridiculous atrocities, including water "more contaminated than water from the Euphrates river."

"Nobody seems to give a damn."

"Pretty unbelievable."

2:16pm: Dorgan: "What is happening with some of these contractors undermines our troops and deceives and cheats our taxpayers"

2:19pm: Julie McBride is first up. She is a former recreation coordinator at KBR stationed at Fallujah. The "camp mom"

2:22pm: She's talking about how she was instructed to inflate the usage of the fitness and internet access by the troops. 5X !! Halliburton got paid based on that number.

2:24pm: They'd even use the number of towels or bottles of water used and consider those each individual people.

"It's cost plus, baby!"

2:27pm: Halliburton management frequently treated troops like an "annoyance"

2:29pm: Now Alan Grayson is up. An attorney representing Halliburton whistleblowers. He's in the film.

2:31pm: Only two of the many lawsuits filed against the war profiteers have reached trial because of the Bush administration

They have 60 days to investigate, and they are extending it to "60 weeks." Bush is "throwing a monkey wrench" into the legal process.

Grayson quotes Abraham Lincoln: "Worse than traitors in arms are the men who pretend loyalty to the flag, feast and fatten on the misfortunes of the Nation while patriotic blood is crimsoning the plains of the South and their countrymen moldering the dust."

2:35pm: Edward Sanchez, one of the truck drivers in the film who survived the Good Friday Massacre. This is one of the key stories in the film.

"All hell broke loose ... shots were coming like a hail storm"

2:38: I'm hearing from Robert that the room is totally packed. It looks like it on TV.

2:41: This story is amazing, and it's just beyond the pale what Halliburton did. Watch the film, that section gives me chills every time I see it, and I've seen it a lot.

2:42pm: Sean Larvenz, another Halliburton truck driver who survived the attacks. He talked about the very specific messages that he got that day from Halliburton managers.

2:48pm: Senators Reid and Durbin are now in the room.

2:49pm: Scott Allen, an attorney representing some of the families who lost loved ones.

Allen: We are not saying the military is responsible for this, they were all very brave. This was Halliburton's fault.

Allen: This was not a true "surprise attack". Halliburton/KBR knew that the roads they would travel were "currently engaged in active combat, closed, and off limits to civilian personnel."

He's talking very specifically about how Halliburton promised over and over to their employees that they would never be put in harm's way.

3:07pm: Senators are asking questions now

3:08pm: Allen: Halliburton is saying they are the equivalent of the military and have immunity in the case, and he can't take any depositions.

3:12pm: Sen. Bingaman is asking everyone if they've been interviewed by Halliburton or the Pentagon. Basically no one has, and no one cares.

3:16pm: Grayson: "Nobody is trying to prevent this from happening again."

3:19pm: Sen. Reid is asking Ed Sanchez about how he was firing a soldier's machine gun in defense while under attack, never having done it before.

3:21pm: Sen. Reid is asking the same questions of Sean Larvenz. and he's asking the three whistleblowers if anyone has contacted them from the government.

T. Christian Miller huffblogs on the hearings.

3:31pm: Sen. Durbin: This doesn't come up during the regular hearings on Tueseday, Wednesday, and Thursday (run by Republicans, who control the Senate) because they don't want to hear these witnesses.

3:32pm: In Iraq, whenever someone does something wrong, like stealing from taxpayers, they call it a 'drug deal'. There were a lot of 'drug deals' going on.

3:34pm: Larvenz: "It's money before people." Sanchez: "It was about money for them."

3:36pm: Allen: Halliburton gets people to sign a release form releasing them from medical liability, and they do it by saying that the employee will then be eligible for a U.S. medal of freedom!

3:38pm: Durbin is mad. Halliburton has friends in high places. This company has the nerve to tell Congress they are apple pie and America. Ripping off our troops and the taxpayers.

3:47pm: Senator Leahy: "I'd like to see a few of them go to jail."

(Originally on Huffington Post)

It's worth pausing to recall the insidious nature of Halliburton's role in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. As with so much related to the Bush/Cheney Administration, the truth is stranger than fiction. We did not need Oliver Stone for this one; Robert Greenwald's fact-based documentary tells it better than any novelist could imagine.

Youtube link

Julie McBride, a former KBR "morale, welfare and recreation" coordinator at Camp Fallujah, takes a stand against war profiteering.

I am somewhat of an idealist. I believe that most people are good and when faced with a decision will decide to do what is right. After I read the Washington Post article and saw the quote from Melissa Norcross a little bit of that idealism was chipped away. I know...I know this is what PR people do, they spin. But do they also lie? Melissa Norcross did.

Youtube video link

Emmet Barta (who I think is a KBR truck driver) made this video in honor of the truck drivers slaughtered in the Good Friday Massacre. Two of the survivors that day tell their story in 'Iraq for Sale'. Watch Emmet's video:

YouTube link