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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
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Wyden: 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 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 water treatment plant. Read the remainder of this entry »

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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
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Interview with Cartagena “Escort” involved in 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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US moves to drop charges against Kuwait’s Agility

By Forseti | Filed in Agility/PWC/GCC, GOV. CONTRACTORS, Indictments, Convictions & Arrests, Politics
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“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 , 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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Court Publishes Decision in Contractor Fee Dispute Involving “The Mother of all DFAC Drug Deals”

By Ms Sparky | Filed in GOV. CONTRACTORS, Indictments, Convictions & Arrests, KBR Contract, LAWSUITS, LOGCAP III - KBR, Politics, Reports & Investigations
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– () – May 10, 2012 – The U.S. Court of Federal Claims recently unsealed its opinion and order in the nearly four-year fight by KBR to recoup the $41 million it claims the U.S. Army owes under the LOGCAP III contract in Iraq. The government, in return, filed a countersuit claiming kickbacks two contract managers took from a LOGCAP III subcontractor invalidates ’s claim.

KBR filed a lawsuit in the Court of Federal Claims seeking $41 million in unpaid costs and fees incurred under LOGCAP III for dining facility (DFAC) services at Camp Anaconda, Iraq from July through December 2004. The government filed a counterclaim alleging that the thousands of dollars in kickbacks KBR managers and accepted from DFAC subcontractor Tamimi Global Company, Ltd. should cause KBR to forfeit its claims against the government under various fraud theories and the Anti-Kickback Act.

The case went to trial in late 2011. Two weeks ago, the court issued its judgment, awarding KBR $11,792,505 plus interest but also awarding the government $38,000 in civil penalties on its counterclaim. Interestingly, KBR’s statement about the judgment filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week does not mention the latter.

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America’s Shame: The U.S. Government’s Human Trafficking Dilemma

By Ms Sparky | Filed in Commission on Wartime Contracting (CWC), GOV. CONTRACTORS, Iraq Human Trafficking, KBR, KBR Contract, Politics, Reports & Investigations, Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Violations
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– () – May 7, 2012 – For , the offer was the answer to a prayer: A job in a luxury hotel in Dubai–the so-called Las Vegas of the Persian Gulf–making five times what she was earning as a hair stylist in her native Fiji.

She jumped at the chance, even if it meant paying an upfront commission to the recruiter.

You probably know how this story is going to end. There was no high-paying job, luxury location or easy work.

Tuivaga and other Fijians ended up in Iraq where they lived in shipping containers and existed in what amounted to indentured servitude.

Journalist told Tuivaga’s story and that of tens of thousands of other foreign workers in acute detail almost a year ago in her New Yorker piece, “The Invisible Army.”

In some cases, Stillman found more severe abuses and more squalid living conditions than what Tuivaga and her fellow Fijians experienced.

But like Tuivaga, thousands of foreign nationals in the U.S. government’s invisible army ended up in Iraq and Afghanistan war zones because they fell victim to human traffickers.

Let that sink in.

This pipeline wasn’t benefitting some shadowy war lord or oppressive regime. No, these are workers who were feeding, cleaning up after, and providing logistical support for U.S. troops—the standard-bearers of the free and democratic world. Read the remainder of this entry »

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