KBR may have poisoned 100,000 people in Iraq: lawsuit

Daniel Tencer
Raw Story
Monday, November 9, 2009

Defense contractor KBR may have exposed as many as 100,000 people, including US troops, to cancer-causing toxins by burning waste in open-air pits in Iraq, says a series of class-action lawsuits filed against the company.

At least 22 separate lawsuits claiming KBR poisoned American soldiers in Iraq have been combined into a single massive lawsuit that says KBR, which until not long ago was a subsidiary of Halliburton, sought to save money by disposing of toxic waste and incinerating numerous potentially harmful substances in open-air “burn pits.”

According to one of the lawsuits (PDF), filed in a federal court in Nashville, KBR burned “tires, lithium batteries … biohazard materials (including human corpses), medical supplies (including those used during smallpox inoculations), paints, solvents, asbestos insulation, items containing pesticides, polyvinyl chloride pipes, animal carcasses, dangerous chemicals, and hundreds of thousands of plastic water bottles.”

And they did so within plain sight of US troops operating in Iraq, the lawsuit states. “In some instances, the burn pit smoke was so bad that it interfered with the military mission,” the Nashville lawsuit states. “For example, the military located at Camp Bucca, a detention facility, had difficulty guarding the facility as a result of the smoke.”

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The plaintiffs note that the military “did not prevent” KBR from disposing of the waste “in a safe manner that would not have harmed plaintiffs. The military wanted the defendants to solve the burn pit problems.”

The lawsuit “claims at least 100,000 people were endangered by the contractors’ ‘utter indifference to and conscious disregard’ of troops’ welfare,” notes the Courthouse News Service.

At a hearing of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee on Friday, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) said that KBR continues to use burn pits at the US’s largest base in Iraq.

“The Army and the contractor in charge of this waste disposal — Kellogg, Brown, and Root — made frequent and unnecessary use of these burn pits and exposed thousands of US troops to toxic smoke,” Dorgan said. “Burn pits are still used at the Balad Airbase in Iraq, which is the largest US base in that country.”

A 2008 report by the Pentagon asserted that “adverse health risks are unlikely” from the burn pits, but that assertion was challenged by retired Lt. Col. Darrin Curtis, a biomedical sciences officer who took some of the air samples used in the report.

“Although I have no hard data, I believe that the burn pits may be responsible for long-term health problems in many individuals,” the Air Force Times quoted Curtis as saying. “I think we are going to look at a lot of sick people.”

EXPOSURE A ‘PRE-EXISTING CONDITION’

The plaintiffs filing the lawsuits say they have suffered from health problems ranging in seriousness from shortness of breath to cancer. Russell Keith, a paramedic from Huntsville, Alabama, told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee his doctors believe his development of Parkinson’s disease was triggered by 15 months of daily exposure to the burn pits at Joint Base Balad in Iraq. Another plaintiff claims to have developed kidney disease as a result of exposure.

Former KBR employee Rick Lambeth told the committee: “Since returning home in July, I have suffered from a number of respiratory problems related to the exposure. Now the military will not pay for my medical care. They claim that these conditions … existed prior to service.”

For its part, KBR says that it has been “improperly named” in the lawsuit, and points the finger at the military.

“There are significant discrepancies between the plaintiffs’ claims in the burn litigation against KBR and the facts on this issue,” Heather Browne, director of corporate communications, told the Nashville Post. Browne said that KBR doesn’t operate all the burn pits in Iraq; that the Army, and not the company, decides on burn pit locations; and that the Army decides when to fund an incinerator and when to burn waste in the open air.

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10 Responses to “KBR may have poisoned 100,000 people in Iraq: lawsuit”

1. Matzo Man Says:
   November 9th, 2009 at 3:23 pm

   This will be tough to prove. They may be able to prove the illegal disposal but I don’t know about the health effects.

   

   e Reply:
   November 9th, 2009 at 3:50 pm

   Nobody cares about the KBR gang rape case.

   Wonder if they will care about them poisoning the “troops”.

   Probably not.

   

   Bray Reply:
   November 10th, 2009 at 6:04 am

   http://www.KeepTheTruthAlive.com

2. moose Says:
   November 9th, 2009 at 3:28 pm

   This is Army policy for waste disposal in these situations. It’s cheap. KBR just put their stuff in the reg’lar ol’ pit like everybody else. Although you realize, once KBR is driven to bankruptcy by this, the Army will need the rest of your paycheck not taken by Pelosicare, to compensate the locals. You didn’t think that money was yours, did you?

   

   e Reply:
   November 9th, 2009 at 3:51 pm

   Actually, there is ample evidence that much of the “missing trillions” from the Pentagon went straight to black ops and secret shit KBR is doing over there.

   

   ? Reply:
   November 10th, 2009 at 5:44 am

   Dov Zakheim knows where the money went.

3. Peter James Says:
   November 9th, 2009 at 3:37 pm

   There is A God In Heaven

   http://www.peterjamesx.com

4. cooper Says:
   November 9th, 2009 at 3:47 pm

   We need out of these wars and use the money for our own country.

5. Incriminally Sane Says:
   November 9th, 2009 at 3:53 pm

   KBR/HALIBURTON does NOT care about fulfilling their obligations of contracts because they have the most powerful man around that just left gubment orifice, PRICK CHENEY.

   This is NO DIFFERENT than the energy companies that dump billions of tons of toxic waste into the oceans each year for an annual savings of hundreds of billions of dollars in proper disposal costs and if they get busted, a ten thousand dollar fine is like a parking ticket for them that means NOTHING.

6. guyfox Says:
   November 10th, 2009 at 5:54 am

   a film about nwo veri-chip and the coming forced chip implantand cop media you got to watch this and pass it on – resist the mark of the beast http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmvCFd866R8