Oregon Soldiers Sue KBR For Exposure To Cancer-Causing Chemical

The Oregonian:

Five current and former Oregon Army National Guard soldiers filed suit Monday against a war contractor that they say knowingly exposed them to a cancer-causing chemical in Iraq.

The suit alleges that managers from Kellogg, Brown & Root, or KBR, of Houston knew before the Oregon Guard arrived at the Qarmat Ali water treatment plant in May 2003 that the site was contaminated by hexavalent chromium, a highly toxic and long-identified carcinogen.

Read the whole story: The Oregonian

Comments

[Rhotel1]

02:08 AM on 06/10/2009

Two comments were made about the use of depleted uranium. Both are false.

ebanks84 I'm a Fan of ebanks84

Yes, true! And we should NEVER forget the companies that put the depleted uranium in our soldiers ammunition to further destroy human lives. They should also be charged with war crimes.

DU has not further destroyed human lives and this link below is full of just about every lie on DU that has ever been posted

http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/extremedeformities.html

Eoin45 I'm a Fan of Eoin45 I'm a fan of this user permalink
Nor should we forget who ordered the use of depleted uranium during the first gulf war: the vastly overrated Colin Powell.

No one ordered the use of DU in the Gulf War. DU was issued in the late 1970s to stop Soviet tanks from flooding across the German border and pushing NATO to the North Sea. DU helped the American soldier know that if those tanks came that he had a fighting chance. Saddam Hussein had thousands of Soviet built tanks and a battle hardened Army. The US Army was not going to battle those tanks without its best bullets and those were DU. They worked as advertised and Saddam mounted a propanda campaign that is still working to this day.

[Rhotel1]

02:01 AM on 06/10/2009

To learn more about DU, learn the origin of some of the photos, go to www.depletedcranium.com to see some of Rokke's actual records that I obtained under FOIA, write me or go to http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/DUStory/message/87 and use the guest user name and password to sign in and visit the Files Section. You can also go to http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/DUStory/message/88 and click on the links to over 50 scientific papers, etc. on DU, radiation, etc.

[Rhotel1]

01:59 AM on 06/10/2009

The Netherlands DU link is loaded with massive amounts of false and misleading information. Many of them are based on false statements made by Douglas Lind Rokke, a retired Army Reserve officer who pretends to be a 40-year career Army "warrior". Rokke served during Desert Storm in Riyadh, not on the front lines where he often pretends that he actually was. Reserve Captain Rokke also served for 15 months at Fort McClellan, Alabama and he claims he was the Director of the Army's DU Program. DU penetrators were developed nearly 20 years earlier when Rokke was serving in the Air Force during the Vietnam War. Rokke had nothing to do with that and he actually was the liaison officer with contractor personnel who were developing DU awareness training materials. Rokke claims to have led the team that was responsible for cleaning up the Army's DU mess and to have been hand picked out of his university laboratory and sent to war. Rokke did not lead the team; First Lieutenant Rokke, Army Reserve, was the junior officer on the team. There was no "Army's DU mess" and Rokke was working in a lab alright when he got his orders to be a filler for the 12th Medical Detachment in November 1990. He was not a researcher though or even a scientist. Rokke was actually a Physical Science Technician responsible for maintaining the laboratory apparatus and taking routine experimental measurements.

Roger
[e-mail]

[hulagirrrl]

01:53 PM on 06/09/2009

This is just getting too much to bear for me, I just can not stand the thought that these young men and women are being abused, used, and killed by these gangsta contractors, and there seems to be little we can do. Huffington Post, keep readers updated on this issue.

[GreatNews27]

01:22 PM on 06/09/2009

KBR could round up children and gas them in front of the Supreme Court with total immunity. They don't just work for the government, they ARE the government. Trust me, no one lays a glove on the company that electrocutes 'The Troops" in their own showers. It's not PATRIOTIC.

[littleblackcat]

12:56 PM on 06/09/2009

I hope these men win against KBR, and win big! No stone should left unturned as far as they or dick cheney is concerned. No-bid contracts (and I'll bet HUGE percentages of these contracts are funneled into cheney's bank accounts) with slipshod performances that have left our servicepeople being exposed to carcinogenics or electrocuted while cheney and halliburton pocket mega-bucks! It doesn't get too much more disgusting but it has become exactly what we have come to expect from the bush mess. Bring these people to trial!

[jsgaetano]

12:41 PM on 06/09/2009

Since soldiers kill people who attack them, does this mean the US Army should be attacking KBR?

[tel8034]

12:16 PM on 06/09/2009

Cheney was all for starting an unnecessary war in Iraq, and to ensure that it became a never-ending war so that he could PROFIT FROM it .................... And as a result his companies Haliburton and KBR were given numerous contracts which were ALL overpriced and which were never scrutinized, and Cheney made BILLIONS.

Just yesterday Keith Olbermann reported how KBR got repeated contracts for PROJECTS ALREADY COMPLETED .............. KBR was paid over and over for ALREADY COMPLETED WORK because there was no oversight.

But where was the honesty and integrity at Haliburton and KBR? ............. They knew that they had already been awarded particular contracts for which they had ALREADY BEEN PAID, yet they continued to receive requests to do the same completed work, and rather than being honest and advising the Pentagon that they had already completed the contract and that they had already been paid, they just went ahead and sent them a duplicate invoice and took the money.

All that money yet they did shoddy work, and put the armed forces into harms was.

THERE SHOULD BE A CLASS ACTION SUIT, WITH A SETTLEMENT EQUALLING THE TOTAL SUM KBR RECEIVED FROM CHENEY'S WAR PROFITEERING....... LEAVING HALIBURTON AND KBR WITH NOTHING GAINED BECAUSE OF THE IRAQ WAR WHICH CHENEY ORCHESTRATED FOR HIS OWN BENEFIT.

It's only fair when the Iraq war never should have happened in the first place and when Cheney should not have made BILLIONS off the backs of taxpayers.

[PaiaGirl]

12:33 PM on 06/09/2009

Yes1 Class action suit. Get our money back from KBR and Haliburton and give it to the people they harmed -- our soldiers.

[hulagirrrl]

01:58 PM on 06/09/2009

Where was the honesty you ask, tel8034. Let us see here, most contracting persons within KBR and Haliburton are ex military, many officers who while in the military push the jobs to these companies because they know a nice cushioned job is waiting for them... so, really, the honesty is amiss all along the contracting people, and I wager up to congress.
I wish we still had reporters who are taking chances and dig deep, they would really bring up a pile of dung when digging into the contracting business of the armed forces. It is all about "you scratch my back, I scratch yours"...

[mergina]

11:57 AM on 06/09/2009

Awesome, and IT'S ABOUT TIME. I wonder how much Cheney made on that deal?

[GlenRast]

12:30 PM on 06/09/2009

Only his off shore bankers know for sure

[AbeMartin]

11:30 AM on 06/09/2009

KBR should also be sued for negligence and cover-up for the electrical work that they did in Iraq which has resulted in the electrocution of dozens of our troops.

[GlenRast]

12:33 PM on 06/09/2009

What do you expect? Qualified electricians demand higher pay and that would cut into the profit margin. I wouldn't be surprised if KBR had figured out a way to turn a profit off of every dead soldier.

[Kungfublood]

11:29 AM on 06/09/2009

Dick Cheney's kids (no bid insider contracts awarded before 911 most likely) at work a makin more money on Dead Americans.

[sheilaofmiami]

11:28 AM on 06/09/2009

I am under the impression that the previous administration did not see our soldiers as valuable humans who had lives to get back to one day. These were expendable inventory, so what's a little cancer among the troops?

[ProfessorDuh]

12:00 PM on 06/09/2009

Among the cann0n f0dder.

[GlenRast]

12:38 PM on 06/09/2009

Soldiers are always viewed as somewhat expendable. Everyone who serves knows this. The difference is how. Had we lost a couple thousand troops in Afghanistan completely wiping out AQ and the Taliban and killing Bin Laden and his chiefs it would have been worth it.

[sheilaofmiami]

02:15 PM on 06/09/2009

But to Prez Cheney, they were less than human, he did not feel their deaths. At least one gets the impression that Obama knows people are dying.

[Jaxy]

11:14 AM on 06/09/2009

And now the truth can be revealed. The real reason why Rethugs keep vaunting that they 'Support the Troops' is because their self-interest is inexorably linked to troop deployment. And to war.

Their corporate overlords earn multi-billions of dollars from wars. Some of that money is then spent for the benefit of the Party upper-echelon (none of the monies 'trickles' down to the underlings and pedestrian members, mind you).

For Rethugs, opposing war and aggressive action is the functional equivalent of killing the Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs. Otherwise stated, counterintuitive.

[helonias]

11:22 AM on 06/09/2009

Their idea of support the troops is magnetic ribbons on SUVs

[1differentdrummer]

11:57 AM on 06/09/2009

Exactly, or a real flag flapping as you drive your pickup down the road.

[jsgaetano]

11:10 AM on 06/09/2009

If Iraqis attack US troops, we kill them.

If KBR kills US troops, Republicans give them more money.

[BannedNBoston]

11:05 AM on 06/09/2009

Another black hole for contractors to abuse and torture
Red Cross not allowed in Kabul Prison
Thursday 21 May 2009 | Barack Obama feed | All feeds ... Every Monday, at a Red Cross compound in Kabul, Pashtu families gather for a glimpse by live video feed of brothers, sons and husbands who have disappeared into a feared detention centre at the main American base in Afghanistan. ... There, in the notorious "Dark Prison",
314k - 45 sec @ 56k
This site uses Flash www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/bar... www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4332499/Afghanistans-Guantanamo-poses-new-prison-problem-for-Barack-Obama.html