Contractors

• 5/9/08: Blackwater “is not expected to face criminal charges” over the [Nisour Square massacre in September 2007], “all but ensuring the company will keep its multimillion-dollar contract to protect U.S. diplomats.” Instead, the seven-month-old Justice Department investigation is focused on as few as three or four Blackwater guards who could be indicted in the Sept. 16 shootings, according to interviews with a half-dozen people close to the investigation. The final decision on any charges will not be made until late summer at the earliest, a law enforcement official said. Nevertheless, families of the shooting victims “are suing Blackwater under a wrongful death claim in civil court.” Furthermore, federal prosecutors in North Carolina are “investigating whether Blackwater played a role in a weapons smuggling case linked to the Kurdish militant group PKK, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.”
• 5/3/08: "the testimony earlier this week of three whistleblowers before the Senate's Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) stands out for the sheer outrageousness of their accusations - namely that US private contractors looted Iraqi palaces and ministries, stole military equipment, fenced supplies destined for US troops, and even operated a prostitution ring that may have contributed to the death of fellow contractor."
• 4/28/08: two former employees of embattled contract company KBR told a congressional panel that some of their coworkers frequently stole money and artwork from Iraq. One said that “some of her American colleagues doing construction work in Iraqi palaces and municipal buildings took woodcarvings, tapestries and crystal ‘and even melted down gold to make spurs for cowboy boots.’” Another said that “a KBR foreman tried to take military equipment, including two rocket launchers, detonators and ammunition.”
• 4/9/08: Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) held a hearing on the alleged rapes by U.S. contractors in Iraq and the lack of federal prosecutions. Dawn Leamon, who worked for KBR in Iraq and has two sons who served as soldiers, is the latest victim of sexual assault to come forward. She testified that she was “unaware of any measures to date being taken against the KBR employee or the member of the U.S. military who attacked me.”
• 2/12/08: Jamie Leigh Jones, who says she was gang-raped by her co-workers at a Halliburton/KBR camp in Baghdad, says 38 women have come forward through her foundation to report their own tragic stories to her, but that many cannot speak publicly due to arbitration agreements in their employment contracts.

Military