When I first met Ben Carter by telephone in January of 2006, he was somewhat of a lone voice shouting into an empty stadium. He had been working for Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR)—a Halliburton subsidiary that had billions of dollars worth of government contracts in Iraq—as a water contamination specialist. I was working with Brave New Films on a documentary (Iraq For Sale) about war profiteering companies who used the war as a way to line their pockets with gads of tax-payer cash for such things a bag of washed laundry at $100 a pop, or $45 for a six pack of Coke.
The war had been outsourced and privatized, and the likes of KBR were not so privately robbing the country blind with cost-plus contracts. Based on this bright idea, the more a company spent, say, on that Hummer for the boss running the ice cream stand for the troops on leave in Kuwait, the more that company made. Or rather, when looked at from the public's side of the ledger, the more the taxpayer paid.
Back in early 2006, Ben was talking to anyone who would listen about how he had discovered contaminated water on at least three Army bases in Iraq, water supplied by KBR, with the kind of stuff in it that you have to magnify to convince yourself it could kill you. But few people were listening, and certainly not the executives at Halliburton/KBR to whom he reported the problem. At the time, Halliburton said there was "no evidence to substantiate allegations made by these former employees.''
But as there is a fairly crisp logarithm about the Iraq War in all its facets, namely, every problem or failure having "no evidence to substantiate," it eventually finds that the evidence DOES point to the problem being real. Ben Carter, of course, has now been vindicated.
An internal Pentagon report by the Inspector General maintains that said "soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry [remember that $100 bucks] at five U.S. military sites in Iraq." And that KBR's water quality "was not maintained in accordance with field water sanitary standards."
Ben Carter has been vindicated, but it took a hard slog. And even as the evidence is laid out before them, KBR executives continue to claim that their hands, if not those of the soldiers they poisoned, are clean.
For Ben Carter, who lost a twenty-year old son just prior to joining the KBR water crew in Iraq, the emotional connection with the men and women he was supposed to be protecting—not from IEDs, but from one-celled animals—was instant and profound. He said:
"I hadn't anticipated seeing him in a lot of the marines' faces. These marines and army soldiers, they're just kids. 19, 18, 20-years-old. And I could see in their eyes that they've got a lot to learn. And they trust, but sometimes that trust isn't what they expect. They trust that when people are there to do what they're getting paid much more than the young marine's getting paid, they trust that job is getting done. And they're not wise enough to the world, to the corporate world especially, to know that that trust doesn't matter when it comes to money."
There's that algorithm again. If the Bushies say trust us, and KBR, with your money and your lives, best to put your hands in your pockets and head the other direction, and fast. As we see with this Inspector General's report, often the evidence for malfeasance winds it way to the public ever so slowly. So it just might be that before your day of
reckoning, before it is revealed that what you believe to be true is in fact true, you could be broke, or dead, or both.
Iraq was for sale, and it still is. The missing and ripped-off
billions in this three-trillion dollar war are now making their entrance into public consciousness, meandering toward their full hearing, as evidence to be weighed into the balance sheet of this awful and unnecessary act of imperial hubris.
I agree with the previous comment I hate to say it anyone that profits from going to war with another country for NO reason only to put more money in OUR governments pockets...the US citizens will never see any profits from this war but higher gas prices. The US sent everyone over there for a FAKE ass war, they sent troops over there for NO reason because they have civilian contractors doing our jobs now so why the fuck are we still deploying over there to sit around, miss our families and get paid SHIT when a contractor can get paid 3x's as much as solider's risking their lives for the same job...
I'm going to give everyone a reality check. The government doesn't care about no one in Iraq. That would be the troops and the Iraqi citizens. Our govenment are the ones that started this war, our government are the ones that have us (civilian and military alike) over in another country yet again for no reason. If the people of that country want change, if the people in ANY country want change they need to do it themselves like the African-Americans did in the US. We (military) went over there with the impression that we were going to restore order but it has turned into nothing but the US government being greedy and thinking about themselves. No one cares not even the damn US citizens in the US about what's going on over there or how our government is getting over. No one cares about the gas prices going up, if they did the prices wouldn't keep going up like they still are. Bush knows what he's doing, he's laughing at all this because he knows you can't stop him..we can make all the movies and get on line a post all these comments but in the end nothing will happen
we are the staff of the “Iron Horse Film Festival” from Taiwan. We are a group of people striving in collaborating on issues concerning social movement and film art. The Iron Horse team is formed by members with multicultural backgrounds: students, social activists and filmmakers. In Taiwanese, “Iron Horse” literally means “bicycle;” through which we try to present a collection of values on environmental protection and humanism
Every year we try our best to make sure that good documentaries and films from Taiwan and other countries alike be shown at the festival. The Iron Horse has a wide coverage on issues including human rights, labor issues, environment protection, gender, anti-war, anti-colonialism and anti-globalization.
We hope we are not just showing the films, but also provoking more positive effects in the society. Therefore, we hold forums during the festival, providing a space for discussion on the effects of cinematic production/reproduction, as well as problems addressed in the films. Besides, we also hope to cooperate with other progressive social groups and independent filmmaker groups.
Blog of 2007 Iron Horse Film Festival: ironhorse2007.blogspot.com
The Iron Horse team belongs to the Taiwan Labor Information & Education Association, the same parent of Coolloud Collective (苦勞網), Taiwan’s well-known online independent media, which reports and collects news about social movement in Taiwan.
Coolloud Collective (苦勞網)：http://www.coolloud.org.tw/
With years of hard efforts, the number of attendees has reached 3,000 per year (all screenings and forums are free of charge). In addition to connecting Taiwan’s NGOs, we also try to link activist groups internationally; our partners include Media Cultural Action from Korea and V Artivist from Hong Kong. As an organisation supported solely by volunteers and individual donations, we have to achieve more with less.
The 2008 Iron Horse Film Festival will take place from May 9th ~ 18th. Currently, we are looking for films to be shown in the festival. We have rather high interest in your film "Iraq for sale " ,and it will be much appreciated if you can kindly provide more detailed information about the film.
Please reply this E-mail to me.
Official E-mail of the Iron Horse Film Festival: ironhorseff@gmail.com
We hope to hear from you soon!