Ms Sparky

May

Taxpayers foot the bill for KBR attorneys at $750 per hour plus other outrageous perks

By Ms Sparky | Filed in CHEMICAL AND OTHER EXPOSURES, GOV. CONTRACTORS, LAWSUITS, Lawsuits Against KBR, Politics, Qarmat Ali Lawsuits, RIO-KBR, Sodium Dichromate @ Qarmat Ali

Wyden: KBR is Wasting Taxpayer Money While Avoiding Responsibility for Exposure of Oregon Guard to Toxic Chemicals

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Washington, D.C. – In a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) called on the DoD to investigate the excessive expenses racked up by the legal team of Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) – a defense contractor that operated in Iraq with the contractual ability to pass all of their legal costs to American taxpayers. A lawsuit against KBR brought by a group of Oregon National Guard members assigned to provide security for KBR personnel claims that KBR management knew that the soldiers were being exposed to toxic chemicals while working at the Qarmat Ali water treatment plant. Read the remainder of this entry »

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Tags: David Sugerman, Jeff Raizner, KBR, Mike Doyle, Oregon National Guard, Qarmat Ali, RIO-KBR, Secretary Leon Panetta, Sen. Ron Wyden

May

Leaked Memo: Afghan ‘Burn Pit’ Could Wreck Troops’ Hearts, Lungs

By Ms Sparky | Filed in Burn Pit Lawsuits, Burn Pits, CHEMICAL AND OTHER EXPOSURES, GOV. CONTRACTORS, LAWSUITS, Lawsuits Against KBR

A bulldozer dumps a load of trash into a burn pit just 300 yards from the runway at Bagram Airfield, January 2012. An Army memo from 2011 found the burn pit is associated with "long-term" health effects on soldiers at Bagram. Photo: U.S. Army

By Spencer Ackerman @ Wired.com

A bulldozer dumps a load of trash into a burn pit just 300 yards from the runway at Bagram Airfield, January 2012. An Army memo from 2011 found the burn pit is associated with “long-term” health effects on soldiers at Bagram.

For years, U.S. government agencies have told the public, veterans and Congress that they couldn’t draw any connections between the so-called “burn pits” disposing of trash at the military’s biggest bases and veterans’ respiratory or cardiopulmonary problems. But a 2011 Army memo obtained by Danger Room flat-out stated that the burn pit at one of Afghanistan’s largest bases poses “long-term adverse health conditions” to troops breathing the air there. Read the remainder of this entry »

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Tags: Baghram, Bagram Airfield, Burn Pits, Lawsuits Against KBR, Susan Burke

May

Colombia Secret Service Prostitution Scandal Spreads to the DEA

By Ms Sparky | Filed in Politics, Reports & Investigations, Senate & House Committee Hearings, Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Violations

Interview with Cartagena “Escort” involved in Secret Service scandal (May 2012)

Pierre Thomas and Jason Ryan – (ABC News) – May 22, 2012 – A month after the Secret Service was rocked by allegations that agents brought prostitutes to a Colombia hotel where they were preparing for a visit by President Obama, the Drug Enforcement Administration today announced that at least three of its agents are also under investigation for allegedly hiring prostitutes in Cartagena.

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Tags: DEA, Human Trafficking, Mark Sullivan, Secret Service, Sen. Susan Collins, TIPs

May

Former employee says defense contractor retaliating for whistle-blowing

By Forseti | Filed in GOV. CONTRACTORS, LAWSUITS, Qui Tam

Brian Bowling – (Tribune-Review) – May 21, 2012 – A Butler County man claims in a federal lawsuit filed today that subsidiaries of London-based defense contractor BAE Systems PLC have prolonged a state lawsuit over a non-competition clause and his federal bankruptcy case to punish him for filing a whistleblower lawsuit against the contractor.

Paul Bartock of Center claims that O’Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt Armoring Co. and its successor, BAE Systems Survivability Systems, have kept him from working for a competitor long after the two-year term of his non-competition contract expired because they know he filed a False Claims Act lawsuit in 2007. BAE Systems bought O’Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt in 2007, the lawsuit says.

Bartock was formerly the head of the company’s program for providing enhanced-armored Humvees to the Army, the lawsuit says.

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Tags: BAE Systems, BAE Systems Survivability Systems, Brian Roehrkasse, False Claims Act, O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt Armoring Co., Paul Bartock

May

US moves to drop charges against Kuwait’s Agility

By Forseti | Filed in Agility/PWC/GCC, GOV. CONTRACTORS, Indictments, Convictions & Arrests, Politics

“The government resorted to a series of sharp and unethical tactics, designed to distort – and in some instances create – the evidence to support the government’s after-the-fact interpretation of the contract and to transform what is, at best, a contractual dispute over the proper interpretation of the prime vendor contracts into a criminal prosecution,” according to the court filing in federal court in Atlanta earlier this year.

Shane McGinley – (Arabian Business) – May 21, 2012 – Kuwait’s Agility, the logistics firm accused of fraud in the US, has seen legal proceedings against it dismissed at the request of the US Department of Justice, the company said in a statement on Sunday to the Dubai bourse.

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Tags: Agility, Agility DGS Holdings, Agility DGS Logistics Services Company KSCC, Agility/PWC/GCC, Department of Justice (DoJ), DoJ*