My boss at KBR: "The military is none of our f---ng concern."

kpete

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Fri Jul-11-08 03:33 PM
Original message

My boss at KBR: "The military is none of our f---ng concern."

Edited on Fri Jul-11-08 03:35 PM by kpete

My boss at KBR: "The military is none of our f---ing concern."
Posted by: Guest Blogger Ben Carter
Date: 7/11/2008 12:05 pm

Ben Carter is a water safety expert and a caring family man. Passionate about his work, Carter went to Iraq to support the troops and reconstruction efforts. Yet soon after he arrived in Iraq he found KBR/Halliburton cutting essential corners, resulting in U.S. troops being forced to shower in wastewater. KBR’s indifference to the contaminated water led Carter to resign. Since leaving Iraq he’s spoken out about Halliburton, was one of the subjects of Brave New Films' "Iraq For Sale," testified before the Democratic Policy Committee and worked to warn soldiers of the dangers of contaminated water.

Carter participated in a series of e-mail interviews with me in June to talk about his experiences and spread the word about his quest to bring KBR to justice. Here's his story:

I had been operating my own company in the fall of 2004, when my 20-year-old son suddenly died from a bad combination of prescription medication. This tragedy caused my marriage to end only a month later. With little reason to stay in Utah, I pursued the opportunity of going to work for Halliburton, because I had gotten word that Halliburton was looking for people with expertise in water purification to operate their reverse osmosis water purification units (ROWPU). I had extensive experience with a wide range of water purification technologies, and I was attracted to the idea of providing a valuable service to our soldiers serving in Iraq. At the time, I was very excited at the prospect of being an employee once again, doing great things with providing clean safe water to U.S. troops and seeing some exciting places around the world. This was before I learned anything about Halliburton and their business practices.

................

After my initial shock of discovering that KBR was delivering contaminated water to the unsuspecting consumers, I immediately went to work first by decontaminating the water system and then asking questions to military personnel in charge of their ROWPU unit. I learned that their only responsibility was for the production of potable water and they were doing a fine job of producing it for the dinning facility and the hospital. They never questioned what KBR was doing with all that water they were obtaining; they thought it was used for dust abatement on the roads on base. It was obvious to me that the military had been waiting far too patiently for KBR to get their ROWPU up and running like they had been promised.

After I finished with the emergency super chlorination and fact-finding, I prepared an incident report to provide to the KBR health and safety manager at his request. The managers made it clear to me that the whole issue was over now and I was instructed to stop e-mailing anybody outside of Ar Ramadi. When I asked the KBR Site manager that I at least be allowed to notify the military personnel in charge of all the water tanks on the base, she told me, "The military is none of our f---king concern." This was appalling to my sense of why I was there trying to help our military.

A few days later, there was an all hands meeting where the water issue was disclosed by management. We were all told the problem was solved and there was nothing to worry about. I knew this was absolutely untrue and was also offended that they had not consulted with me prior to this announcement. I knew that if I chose to remain loyal to KBR management and simply go along with looking the other way, a day would come when this story got out. And it would be me who would be blamed for not doing more to ensure the safety of everybody using this water on the base. It upset me to realize how shameful KBR management was about the entire situation. I decided to resign in protest and do whatever I could to alert people once I returned to the U.S.

much more at:
http://progressivefuture.org/blog/my-boss-at-kbr-the-military-is-none-of-our-f---ing-concern_