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Photo: KBR

Imagine being in the Armed Forces and assigned to Iraq. You arrive in Iraq, go into brand new barracks built by KBR, step in the shower, are electrocuted, and die.

In Balad, Iraq, you go outside – wars require that – and breath in a toxic chemical stew emanating from giant burn pits all courtesy of KBR. Maybe you were deployed by your state National Guard unit early in the war; you were ordered to guard a facility near Basra, and you discovered that KBR did not make the facility safe, even though that was their job. In fact they did such a poor job of cleaning up the place that you find out those symptoms you came down with back in Iraq – the nose bleeds and breathing problems – are now terminal cancer.

That is the world of KBR.

The reason DCBureau keeps pounding away at KBR is because we can’t get the remnants of the major media off the Tiger Woods story long enough to focus on a company  that was given preferential treatment in Army contracting only to use it to harvest huge profits while it injured and killed our troops. Oh, one more thing. Despite all this, KBR has yet to be debarred from doing business with the Pentagon.

One would think that once a new president was elected and his party had full control of Congress the Pentagon would be ordered to investigate its relationship with KBR and hold them accountable for their many transgressions.

In Katie Manning’s “Stories That Matter”documentary - The Burn Pit Contracts, KBR and The Army, you will see and hear firsthand the soldiers hurt by one of the largest military contractors in the second installment in our on-going series on KBR and its Army protectors.

Our previous series on KBR, No Contractor Left Behind, revealed how KBR’s profound neglect in Iraq caused our troops to be exposed to sodium dichromate, a carcinogen. Our National Guardsmen from West Virginia, Oregon and other states brought home from Iraq terminal illnesses and ill health that could fill the rest of their lives with misery. That the Army allowed KBR to make our troop sick is bad enough.  But as you watch Katie Manning’s documentary, you get a sense that KBR’s behavior is now what passes for acceptable contracting at the Pentagon. The fact is the Army has been taking KBR’s side and not its own troops.

Once again, the Army decided to side with the same contractor that has overcharged them for feeding our troops, electrocuted our forces due to faulty work, and exposed them to human sewage through their inability to even get a building properly plumbed.

Then, there is the Army’s Center For Health Promotion Preventative Medicine. CHPPM is the junk science arm of the Army that has been repeatedly used to soft pedal contractors whose actions have exposed troops to toxic chemicals.  If CHPPM concludes you have not been exposed to a deadly chemical, I would call your lawyer and make a new will.

If it were not for Senator Byron Dorgan and his Democratic Policy Committee, there would be no public record of KBR’s outrageous behavior in Congress. But Dorgan’s good intentions have yet to get his Senate colleagues to put some teeth into KBR oversight. As former KBR workers and members of the U.S. military testify about the outrageous behavior of KBR and their arrogant and disturbing corporate culture, these stories are being told to a committee without the power of the purse or oversight authority. The Democratic Policy Committee cannot take testimony under oath or issue subpoenas. It is an ideal setting for a Congress afraid of too serious an investigation. By not passing a hot potato on to a big boy committee, you make the public think you are doing something when, in fact, all you are doing is putting on a dog and pony show.

KBR should have been legally debarred from doing business with the Pentagon and Army for its numerous transgressions, but somehow that has not happened.

The Democratic Policy Committee was set up to provide the Democrats a forum when they were out of power in the Senate.  The Democratic Party is now in charge of the Senate and real committees like Carl Levin’s Armed Services Committee should get into KBR in a very big way. They should be asking questions of the CHPPM panelists under oath like if they have ever tried to talk outside scientists into NOT testifying before Dorgan’s panel.  It is long past due to ask KBR, the poster boy for bad behavior, questions like: How they got no-bid contracts, and who is on their payroll from the military and Congress.

What is Senator Levin afraid of regarding KBR? Senator Dorgan has not said a word about his Democratic colleagues not stepping up to the plate. One does not speak ill of another senator – that’s comity and that is the way the Senate works.

But sometimes good manners have to be set aside for reality. Our troops are dying. We have exposed Iraq citizens to hazardous chemicals. If KBR operated this way in the United States, they would face civil if not criminal penalties.

The brass at the Gates-controlled Pentagon seem to be taking orders, not from an Obama White House intent on fixing problems, but from Dick Cheney’s undisclosed retirement bunker.