I know I'm going to miss the Green Zone. Ah, good times! Just think back to when Paul Bremer and the rest of the hapless Republican incompetents first attempted to impose their neocon and libertarian fantasies onto Iraq's economic and social system:

BAGHDAD, Dec. 31 -- The walls of the majestic Republican Palace in Baghdad's Green Zone have been stripped bare. The vaults that secured American cash and classified documents are gone, and the cement blast walls that protected the front entrance were taken down this week. The U.S. military dining facility inside what was once the American Embassy served its last meal New Year's Eve.

"This is the end of the world as we know it," said Sgt. 1st Class Patrick McDonald, 47, who co-authored a guide to historic sites in the Green Zone. "It's not like everyone is shredding documents and fleeing Saigon. But we are stepping away from a building."

Saddam Hussein had the palace compound's main building decorated with giant busts of himself to demonstrate his hold over Iraq. After the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the palace came to symbolize the American role in the country, first as the headquarters of the U.S. occupation authority and later the U.S. Embassy. American civilians and troops held "salsa night" dances around the pool behind the palace before retiring to trailers sheathed in sandbags.

When the clock struck midnight on Wednesday, the U.S. returned the palace to the Iraqi government and relinquished formal control over the Green Zone, a heavily fortified six-square-mile enclave on the Tigris River where key U.S. and Iraqi bureaucracies are situated.

The handover is a sign of the shrinking footprint and influence of the United States in a country where it has lost thousands of lives and spent billions of dollars. For many Iraqis, the handover represents a significant step forward in their gradual reassertion of dominion over their own affairs.

"On January 1, we are going to control this," Adnan Karim, 22, an Iraqi soldier manning a checkpoint at one of the entrances to the Green Zone, said, beaming. "The U.S. will be here just as observers. It's a matter of pride."

Why do I get the feeling this will get swept under the rug and nothing will happen to KBR?  Will their contracts in Iraq be affected at all?

AP via Yahoo: (h/t ysbaddaden)

Defense contractor KBR Inc. and a Jordanian subcontractor are accused of human trafficking in a federal lawsuit filed in Los Angeles.

The suit alleges 12 Nepali men were being transported to Iraq against their will when they were killed in an insurgent attack.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday by an attack survivor and family members of victims claims subcontractor Daoud & Partners recruited the men in Nepal to work in hotels and restaurants in Jordan.

The company allegedly seized their passports when they arrived in Jordan in 2004 and had them sent to Iraq to work on a U.S. air base.

As a rule, you’d think that military officials who question dubious contracts and protect the interests of taxpayers would be rewarded. Not in this administration.

The Army official who managed the Pentagon’s largest contract in Iraq says he was ousted from his job when he refused to approve paying more than $1 billion in questionable charges to KBR, the Houston-based company that has provided food, housing and other services to American troops.

The official, Charles M. Smith, was the senior civilian overseeing the multibillion-dollar contract with KBR during the first two years of the war. Speaking out for the first time, Mr. Smith said that he was forced from his job in 2004 after informing KBR officials that the Army would impose escalating financial penalties if they failed to improve their chaotic Iraqi operations.

Army auditors had determined that KBR lacked credible data or records for more than $1 billion in spending, so Mr. Smith refused to sign off on the payments to the company. “They had a gigantic amount of costs they couldn’t justify,” he said in an interview. “Ultimately, the money that was going to KBR was money being taken away from the troops, and I wasn’t going to do that.”

Smith wasn’t, but his successors were. Army officials not only quickly removed Smith from his position, they also went outside the Army to consider KBR’s claims and then approved the payments with which Smith was uncomfortable.

Army officials told the NYT that they did reverse Smith’s decision, but they felt it was necessary to provide basic services to U.S. troops. “You have to understand the circumstances at the time,” Jeffrey Parsons, executive director of the Army Contracting Command, said. “We could not let operational support suffer because of some other things.”

So, the only way to provide services to the troops was to approve $1 billion in payments for a Halliburton subsidiary that the company couldn’t substantiate?

VetVoice:

The Pentagon has provided $30 billion in contracts to KBR during the Iraq War.  Apparently that's just the Basic Troop Support Package, however, because it's not enough money to keep the contractor from electrocuting a dozen troops in showers and elsewhere throughout Iraq and Afghanistan.  [..]

The New York Times piece goes on to explain:

The Army has provided little detailed information about the electrocutions, other than to say late Friday that 10 soldiers had been electrocuted in Iraq. A House committee has also reported that two marines died similarly.

One former KBR electrician was quite frank about what's going on:

And Mr. Bliss, who saw a soldier standing next to him in Qalat, Afghanistan, receive a severe shock from an electrical box that was not supposed to be charged, said his KBR bosses mocked him for raising safety issues. They were "not giving the Army what it needed," he said, "and not giving the soldiers what they deserved."

The Nation:

It was an early January morning in 2008 when 42-year-old Lisa Smith*, a paramedic for a defense contractor in southern Iraq, woke up to find her entire room shaking. The shipping container that served as her living quarters was reverberating from nearby rocket attacks, and she was jolted awake to discover an awful reality. "Right then my whole life was turned upside down," she says. [..NSFW description of Smith's rape]

Over the next few weeks Smith would be told to keep quiet about the incident by a KBR supervisor. The camp's military liaison officer also told her not to speak about what had happened, she says. And she would follow these instructions. "Because then, all of a sudden, if you've done exactly what you've been instructed not to do--tell somebody--then you're in danger," Smith says.

As a brand-new arrival at Camp Harper, she had not yet forged many connections and was working in a red zone under regular rocket fire alongside the very men who had participated in the attack. (At one point, as the sole medical provider, she was even forced to treat one of her alleged assailants for a minor injury.) She waited two and a half weeks, until she returned to a much larger facility, to report the incident. "It's very easy for bad things to happen down there and not have it be even slightly suspicious."

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You really can't make this crap up.

CNN:

A U.S. House committee chairman has begun an investigation into the electrocutions of at least 12 service members in Iraq, including that of a Pittsburgh soldier killed in January by a jolt of electricity while showering.

Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said Wednesday he has asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to hand over documents relating to the management of electrical systems at facilities in Iraq.

Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, 24, died January 2 of cardiac arrest after being electrocuted while showering at his barracks in Baghdad.

If that isn't the very definition of troop-hating criminal negligence, I don't know what is. Who here thinks anyone will pay a price for this? Other than Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, this is...

(h/t Nathan)

Photo and more via ABC:

A mother of five who says she was sexually harassed and assaulted while working for Halliburton/KBR in Iraq is headed for a secretive arbitration process rather than being able to present her case in open court.

Barker's attorneys had argued that Halliburton/KBR had created a "boys will be boys" atmosphere at their camps and that sort of condition is not the type of dispute that she could have expected to be within the scope of an arbitration provision.

District Judge Gray Miller, however, wrote in his order that "whether it is wise to send this type of claim to arbitration is not a question for this court to decide." Read on...

BushWorld justice at work, folks. Jamie Leigh Jones, who claims to have been gang raped by KBR employees, then held in a cargo container against her will, is still fighting for her day in court. She has testified before the House Judiciary Committee about her experiences and has started a website for other people who have been the victim of crimes while working for contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nicole predicted that O'Reilly would come after NBC after the Bill O'Reilly Puppet Theater earlier this week.  On Thursday, O'Reilly went one better and upped his long-standing obsession with NBC to their parent company, General Electric, by ranting about a former NBC correspondent's allegations that G.E. has ties to the bin Laden family and is doing business with Iran (I don't know but wouldn't be surprised if the allegations are or were true. So what's that say about the Bush family, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney or Haliburton? Or for that matter, what about Billo's boss Rupert Murdoch's doing business in Cuba among a ton of other questionable business practices? Glass houses much, Billo?).

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When GE CEO/Chairman Jeffrey Immelt did not respond to his show's questions regarding the matter, Billo got his falafel in a bunch and did the same thing he has done so many times before and sent his goons out to ambush him. This time, they caught their victim while he was seated at a table having dinner and the minions (apparently taking lessons in bully journalism from Billo) have to push and shove their way in past the restaurant staff so they can poke the mic and camera in his face.

Immelt's in a totally different league than your average run-of-the-mill Billo ambush victim. Methinks the Big Giant Head just might have bitten off a bit more than he can chew with this stunt. * Note to Immelt - until you launch a hostile takeover bid to acquire News Corp so you can have your revenge, you might want to learn the three magic words that are guaranteed to keep Billo's stalker Mini-Mes at bay and their footage off of the TV next time.

No more James Bond for the pinheads at table seven... (h/t Mr. M.)

Others might have been taken in by the sheer, overwhelming "factiness" of the Jamie Leigh Jones rape/kidnapping/extortion case, but not the Heroes of the Wingnut State. John Swift (satire, but still) takes up the tale:

… Indeed, if the terrorists wanted to undermine the war effort and destroy Western Civilization as we know it, this would be the perfect way to do it. Find an intelligent, attractive young woman to claim she was gang raped by contractors who work at the Vice President's company, and then get a Republican congressman and the State Department to back up part of her story. It's brilliantly evil and almost foolproof! There was just one thing these clever terrorists didn't count on: bloggers like Shackleford, Curt and Ace who would see right through their fiendish plan. …

Jon Swift has links to the right wing bloggers in question, as we don't like to link them here, ahem....

Via ABC News:

A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave. Read on...

Unfortunately, the scumbags who committed the rape and their employer will most likely never be charged with their crimes, thanks to huge loopholes in the law that exempt contractors in Iraq from U.S. or Iraqi law. Jamie has founded a non-profit organization to help other women who have been raped by contractors in Iraq called The Jamie Leigh Foundation. Since our government is dragging their feet, Jamie's only real option is a civil lawsuit - I wish her well.

  The Democrats promised to conduct oversight when they took control of Congress and boy, are they delivering. On Monday, the Senate Oversight Committee held a hearing dealing with Halliburton and their exploitation of a loophole in U.S. law that allowed the company to use foreign subsidiaries in order to do business with terrorist states - namely, Iran. This clip shows Democratic Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) grilling Sherry Williams, V.P. and Corporate Secretary for Halliburton about the company's deplorable ethics and questionable practices.

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Vice President Cheney continues to recieve his hefty pension from Halliburton, all the while knowing that that money is being earned with the blood of American soldiers. These people have no morals and no conscience. It's all about the almighty dollar, screw the troops and screw the American people. They're going to get thiers no matter where the money comes from and how many people have to die to get it. This isn't new by any means, but getting these scumbags in front of Congress and forcing them to answer for their disgusting business practices is, and it's about time. Enjoy the show...

Liberal Lucy at DailyKos:

For one man, the War of Bush/Cheney/Haliburton Oil was his golden ticket to massive wealth and an extraordinary level of influence and menacing power. Meet Erik Prince, born and raised in Holland, Michigan, and one of the country's most dangerous men.

I wonder if they're doing this to avoid the scrutiny of Henry Waxman. They do have a long track record ripping off American taxpayers at the expense of the troops.

MSNBC:

U.S. oil services firm Halliburton Co. is moving its headquarters and chief executive to Dubai in a move that immediately sparked criticism from some U.S. politicians.

Texas-based Halliburton, which was led by Vice President Dick Cheney from 1995-2000, did not specify what, if any, tax implications the move might entail. It plans to list on a stock exchange in the Middle East once it moves to Dubai — a booming commercial center in the Gulf. The company said it was making the moves to position itself better to gain contracts in the oil-rich Middle East.

“This is an insult to the U.S. soldiers and taxpayers who paid the tab for their no-bid contracts and endured their overcharges for all these years,” said judiciary committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat.

Why would the Army fire the well-respected Gen. Weightman? They say it's because they lost trust and confidence in him. It would appear, however, that it's because they don't want him testifying about the privatization that led to the terrible conditions at Walter Reed. Henry Waxman is trying to get to the bottom of it. And what would cronyism in Bush's government be without...wait for it...Halliburton. (h/t Strawberry)

VIDEO UPDATE: CNN is calling the privitization memo a potential smoking gun in the scandal.

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Army Times: 

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has subpoenaed Maj. Gen. George Weightman, who was fired as head of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, after Army officials refused to allow him to testify before the committee Monday.

Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and subcommittee Chairman John Tierney asked Weightman to testify about an internal memo that showed privatization of services at Walter Reed could put “patient care services at risk of mission failure.”

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In the "Duh, tell me something I don't know now" category:

Yahoo News:  

The Halliburton subsidiary that provides food, shelter and other logistics to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan exploited federal regulations to hide details on its contract performance, according to a report released Friday.

The special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction found that Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown & Root Services routinely marked all information it gave to the government as proprietary, whether it was or not. The government promises not to disclose proprietary data so a company's most valuable information is not divulged to its competitors.

By marking all information proprietary - including such normally releasable data as labor rates - the company abused federal regulations, the report says.

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