» KBR Ms Sparky

You’ll pay for that & other news

Posted on: January 22nd, 2012 at 8:09 am — by Forseti

“When I served four years in the military, it wasn’t so that Bechtel, KBR, Halliburton and all the other corporations could make money and buy politicians to further drag out the war and create policies that support all that,” Bodell said. “I fought for the Constitution, for representation and for freedom of the American people.” ~ Kole Bodell, Salt Lake City, UT

Ex-officer indicted for coercing soldiers
(Windsor Star) – January 21, 2012 – A former Danish officer has been indicted for threatening to send troops under his command to the Afghan front line if they refuse to pay a fine for certain errors, website Politiken said Friday.

The 33-year-old, in charge of a royal guard unit in Afghanistan, “put pressure on a number of soldiers in Afghanistan daily to contribute to a system of illegal financial penalties,” said the website.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in Agility/PWC/GCC, GOV. CONTRACTORS, Indictments, Convictions & Arrests, KBR, LOGCAP III - KBR, Politics, Security Contractors, U.S. Army. Tags: ADS Tactical Inc., Agility DGS Holdings, Agility/PWC/GCC, Anham LLC, Bechtel, Bob Dix, Boeing, Bonny Island LNG, Camp Bastion, Carl Icahn, CIA, Corezing International Pte Ltd, DHS, Dick Cheney, DoD*, FCPA, FCPA Violations, George W. Bush, Guantanamo Bay, Halliburton, Icahn Partners LP, JGC Corporation, Judge Pablo Rafael Ruz Gutierrez, Juniper Networks, KBR, Kole Bodell, Lockheed Martin, Luke Hillier, Mabey & Johnson, Mabey Engineering Holdings Ltd., Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, Maj. Gen. Michael Lehnert, Marubeni Corporation, Michael W. Tutwiler, Move One Logistics, Navistar, Northrop Grumman, Osen-Hunter, Oshkosh Corp., Pentagon, PIPA, Rudolf L. Cheung, SOPA, Technip S.A., Triple Canopy, Virginia Army National Guard. No Comments »

U.S. Army protects KBR from willfull misconduct in Iraq

Posted on: December 16th, 2011 at 2:12 pm — by Ms Sparky

Indemnification clauses are nothing new in defense contracting. Many defense contractors now have or have had in the past, contracts with the Pentagon containing indemnity provisions. These provisions potentially immunize the contractors from legal accountability for harm caused during the implementation of their contracts. Indemnification clauses are most commonly found in high risk contracts dealing with the manufacture and disposal of hazardous materials for the Pentagon. Most importantly these indemnification clauses are not necessarily “classified” by the Pentagon unlike the indemnification clause that was added to KBR’s no bid contract to Restore Iraqi Oil (RIO) at Qarmat Ali in Southern Iraq in 2003.

In a deposition filed in U.S. District Court in Portland, Oregon in the case of the deadly hexavalent chromium exposure of Oregon National Guardsman and others, it was revealed that on March 18, 2003, the eve of the Iraq invasion, a KBR attorney secured a secret indemnification clause ensuring U.S. taxpayers, and not KBR, would pay for damages in the event of any death or injury which occurred during KBR’s implementation of the Restore Iraqi Oil no-bid contract in Southern Iraq, a contract worth over $2.5B.

The typical defense contractor indemnification provisions (pdf) for defense contracts, entered as Plaintiff’s exhibit #34 in the Oregon National Guard case against KBR states:

Section (e) – The Contractor shall not be reimbursed for liabilities (and expenses incidental to such liabilities)–

Section (e)(3) – That result from willful misconduct or lack of good faith on the part of any of the Contractor’s directors, officers, managers, superintendents, or other representatives who have supervision or direction of–

(i) All or substantially all of the Contractor’s business;

(ii) All or substantially all of the Contractor’s operations at any one plant or separate locations in which this contract is being performed; or

(iii) a separate and complete major industrial operation in connection with the performance of this contract.

KBR’s recently declassified indemnification provisions (pdf) for the $2.5B no-bid Restore Iraqi Oil contract in Southern Iraq are a stark contrast to the typical indemnification afforded to other defense contractors and states: (Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in CHEMICAL AND OTHER EXPOSURES, GOV. CONTRACTORS, KBR, KBR Contract, LAWSUITS, Lawsuits Against KBR, Politics, Qarmat Ali Lawsuits, RIO-KBR, Sodium Dichromate @ Qarmat Ali. Tags: Hexavalent Chromium, KBR, Lawsuits Against KBR, Qarmat Ali, Rep. Earl Blumenauer*, Rep. Kurt Schrader*, Senator Jeff Merkley*, Senator Ron Wyden*. No Comments »

Lawmakers Secure Provision in NDAA to Bring Transparency to War Contracting Process

Posted on: December 16th, 2011 at 7:03 am — by Ms Sparky

Blumenauer, Wyden, Schrader, Merkley Secure Provision in NDAA to Bring Transparency to War Contracting Process

Thursday, 15 December 2011 17:57

Amendment A Legislative Response To Classified Immunity Deal For Contractor KBR That Exposed Oregon National Guardsmen To Toxic Chemicals In Iraq

WASHINGTON – Today, Congress sent a version of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 to President Obama that included an amendment championed by Oregon Reps. Earl Blumenauer and Kurt Schrader and Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley bringing greater transparency to the war contracting process. The amendment requires the Secretary of Defense to notify the Congressional defense committees when the Pentagon enters into indemnification agreements with contractors connected to U.S. military efforts abroad and explain why such a provision is necessary.

The legislative victory culminates a process that began during the last Congress to reform how the Pentagon does business with defense contractors. The push was sparked by the stories of 34 members of the Oregon National Guard who are suing KBR after exposure to the lethal carcinogen hexavalant chromium during their 2003 tour in Iraq while protecting the Qarmat Ali Water Treatment Facility. The Qarmat Ali site, contracted to KBR for reconstruction, left Oregon troops with chronic medical problems.

The lawsuit revealed the existence of a classified indemnification clause in the KBR contract that could absolve the company from liability and shift the cost of unlimited damages, health costs and court fees onto the Department of Defense and, by extension, U.S. taxpayers. That contract was fully declassified this week as the Iraq war came to an official close. (Read the rest of the story here…)

Blackwater gets an even bigger makeover

Posted on: December 14th, 2011 at 6:25 am — by Ms Sparky

Suzanne Kelly – (CNN) – December 11, 2011 – The company once known as the world’s most notorious private security contractor, Blackwater, is changing its name and its look once again in a bid to prove that it has outgrown its toxic reputation.

Renaming the company “ACADEMI” tops a number of changes that have been made by a private equity consortium that purchased the company from former owner Erik Prince last year.

“The message here is not that we’re changing the name,” said Ted Wright, who came on as the new company CEO in June. “The message is that we’re changing the company, and the name just reflects those changes. We have new owners, a new board of directors, a new management team, new location, new attitude on governance, new openness, new strategy – it’s a whole new company.”

Blackwater was dogged by controversy as it rose from a training facility in Moyock, North Carolina, in the late ’90s, to a private security powerhouse at the height of the war in Iraq. But as business boomed, so did the demand for growth, and rules regarding issues like compliance and governance were sometimes not followed. There were also accusations that some Blackwater guards operating in Iraq’s virtually lawless environment were heavy-handed, and then a deadly shooting in a Baghdad traffic circle in 2007 was the beginning of the end for the company.

Prince tried changing the Blackwater name to Xe, before selling it late last year to the group of investors led by Jason DeYonker, a managing partner at Forte Capital Advisors, and Dean Bosacki, managing partner of Manhattan Partners. The other investing partners remain anonymous. (Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in GOV. CONTRACTORS, KBR, Security Contractors. Tags: Academi, Blackwater, Blackwater/Xe, Blackwater/Xe/Academi, Bobby Inman, Dean Bosacki, Erik Prince Ted Wright, Forte Capital Advisors, Jason DeYonker, John Ashcroft, KBR, Red McCombs. No Comments »

David Isenberg: Now Will You Do Something?

Posted on: November 19th, 2011 at 6:55 am — by Forseti

Najlaa CEO Bill Baisey aka Fathalla Belbaisi (photo from Facebook)

David Isenberg – (Huffington Post) – November 18, 2011 – Normally, I’m not one to go around saying “I told you so,” but (you knew a “but” was coming) I can’t help but point you to Document 172 (Sentencing Memo) of Case 5:09-cr-00154-VEH -PWG, United States of America v. Eddie Presley, and Eurica Pressley, defendants filed on November 13 in the U.S. District Court for Northern Alabama, Northeastern Division.

This document has to do with the now infamous Eddie Pressley fraud case. For those unfamiliar with this the bottom line is that as an Army officer assigned to the Kuwait contracting office, Pressley was responsible for soliciting and reviewing bids for contracts for goods and services for Department of Defense (“DoD”) necessary to support Operation Iraqi Freedom, arranging for contracts to be awarded to DoD contractors, and arranging for calls to be issued under blanket purchase agreements awarded to such contractors.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

KBR Dodges Lawsuit by Electrocuted Marine

Posted on: October 10th, 2011 at 10:25 am — by Forseti

KIM CALANTROPO - (Courthouse News) – RICHMOND, Va. – October 10, 2011 – A Marine who was electrocuted while trying to install a wiring box at the military base near Fallujah, Iraq, cannot pursue negligence claims against defense contractor Kellogg Brown & Root, the 4th Circuit ruled.

Peter Taylor had sought relief from the appellate court after a federal judge dismissed the claim in April 2010. Senior U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar had agreed with KBR that Taylor lacked subject-matter jurisdiction since the political question doctrine bars negligence claims. Doumar also found that the “combat activities” exemption of the Federal Tort Claims Act pre-empts the suit.

The 4th Circuit declined to revive Taylor’s claim, but it did vacate the trial court’s finding about the pre-emption issue since the lack of jurisdiction removes the judges need to consider this aspect of the case.

Taylor, a hospital corpsman for the Marines, had been stationed at a camp about 15 miles outside Fallujah at the time of the July 2007 accident. A generator malfunction had incapacitated the tank ramp that troops used to maintain Marine tanks, Humvees and other vehicles.

(Read the rest of the story here…)

Posted in A Soldiers Story, Electrocutions/Shocks, GOV. CONTRACTORS, KBR, KBR Contract, KBR Investigations, LAWSUITS, Lawsuits Against KBR, LOGCAP III - KBR. Tags: Camp Fallujah, Electrocutions/Shocks, Judge Robert G. Doumar, Judge Robert King, KBR, Petty Officer 2nd Class Peter Taylor, William Stickman. No Comments »

Defense Department Inspector General says KBR and the military failed to respond quickly to health risks posed to Oregon soldiers

Posted on: September 29th, 2011 at 10:24 am — by Ms Sparky

Sodium dichromate has been linked a range of illnesses

…Minutes of a June 14-15 meeting between TF RIO, KBR, and Iraqi State Company for Oil Projects representatives noted that “chemical treatment should [be] selected based on widely available nontoxic commodity chemicals.” However, e-mails between KBR personnel in late June indicated a decision from corporate headquarters in Houston to keep using “chromate” and other chemicals used previously. Three TF RIO witnesses we interviewed supported the conclusion that sodium dichromate was not used at Qarmat Ali after TF RIO and KBR personnel arrived… ~ Part II – Exposure to Sodium Dichromate at Qarmat Ali Iraq in 2003

Mike Francis – (The Oregonian) – September 28, 2011 – The Defense Department and contractor Kellogg, Brown & Root failed to act as quickly as they should have to protect those exposed to a carcinogenic chemical at an Iraqi water treatment plant in 2003, according to a report Wednesday by the Defense Department’s Inspector General.

The report was hailed as a victory for Oregon soldiers by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who was one of a group of senators who sought the IG’s evaluation, and by Oregon National Guard troops who are among those suing KBR. They accuse the contractor of knowingly exposing them to sodium dichromate, an anticorrosive compound that can cause skin and breathing problems and cancer. (Read the rest of the story here…)