U.S. soldiers helped over possible chemical exposure

Posted by Mc Parry on October 9th, 2009 No Comments Printer-Friendly

WASHINGTON, – The U.S. government, in an about-face, yielded to Senate Democrats and said it will reach out to about 1,000 current and former soldiers possibly exposed to a deadly chemical at a water treatment facility in Iraq.

The decision follows complaints that soldiers were placed at risk by what critics say was shoddy work by one of the Pentagon’s biggest private contractors, KBR Inc

There have also been charges by Democratic senators that the military failed to ensure proper handling of sodium dichromate, a chemical used to prevent corrosion in pipes, at the U.S. military facility near Basra in 2003.

Amid finger-pointing and denials of wrongdoing by KBR and the military, current and former soldiers who complained of respiratory problems were largely left to fend for themselves. But Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki said the soldiers would be contacted, monitored and offered help for suspected service-related illnesses.

“We will send letters to these soldiers explaining … how they can get their examination,” Shinseki wrote the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, the research arm of the Senate Democratic Caucus.

Army Secretary Pete Geren, in a letter to the committee, said he had contacted a number of federal agencies to identify potential health issues and had directed the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct an investigation of its own.

“I share your concern for the health and well-being of our soldiers,” Geren wrote in his letter last month. Committee Chairman Byron Dorgan released copies of the letters from Shinseki and Geren on Friday. “I think both of them are breakthroughs,” he said.

Dorgan, who had been pushing the Defense Department for more than a year, said the military had finally acknowledged the need to assist soldiers and examine its own actions.

“The position of the Defense Department had been ‘We did everything the right way,’” said Dorgan, whose committee has held two hearings in the past year on the matter.

Dorgan said KBR — a global engineering, construction and services company headquartered in Houston — has repeatedly “stonewalled and denied that there was any problem.”

A number of soldiers have filed lawsuits against KBR. Spokeswoman Heather Browne said the company had done nothing wrong. “KBR’s conduct at the Qarmat Ali Water Treatment Plant was governed at all times by the terms of its contract with the United States military,” she said.

“Furthermore, the United States Army and the British Forces performed a multitude of medical and environmental tests in 2003 and concluded that there were no long-term health risks associated with the soldiers’ brief exposures to sodium dichromate.”

Until two years ago, KBR was part of Halliburton Co, where Dick Cheney served as chief executive before he was elected U.S. vice president in 2000.

During the Bush administration, critics said Cheney’s deferred compensation from the company represented a conflict of interest and questioned Halliburton’s winning of lucrative government contracts in Iraq. (Thomas Ferraro/Reuters)