Poisoning our troops

Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars has some goodies for us to contemplate:

It takes a strong stomach to make it through this edition of the ongoing list of Bush administration scandals. First up is the story we brought you yesterday of the permanent hearing damage being sustained by our troops at alarming levels. And the saddest part is that it might have been at least partially prevented:

Some Marines were issued a $7.40 pair of double-sided earplugs, with one side designed to protect from weapons fire and explosions, the other from aircraft and tank noise. But the Marines were not given instructions in how to use the earplugs, and some cut them in half, while others used the wrong sides, making the devices virtually useless, Hoffer said. Today, instructions are handed out with the earplugs.

Then there is the disgusting and criminally negligent story of troops in Iraq with skin abscesses and infections, cellulitis and other nasty symptoms because the water used for washing –clothes and body–had not met basic sanitary standards, courtesy of Dick Cheney’s favorite no-bid company: KBR. I guess you can say “Dirty war, dirty water“. At least the troops had clean drinking water. The incidences of cholera in Iraq for civilians has steadily risen since the invasion.

I want to point out that the troops did NOT have clean drinking water.

Kellogg Brown, & Root (KBR) a former subsidiary of Vice President Dick Cheney’s former company of Halliburton was named in a recent report released by the Pentagon saying that it did not maintain the standards for safe drinking water.

The Pentagon has explained in a report that KBR which was once controlled by Halliburton had failed to maintain the standards for the sanitation of the drinking water at various sites throughout Iraq. As a result, many United States troops have been diagnosed with all sorts of illnesses due to drinking the water. [source here]

Now, why did Halliburton and what was then its subsidiary, KBR, get all those no-bid contracts almost instantly when we invaded and occupied Iraq?

Not too hard to connect the dots.

Cheney should be headed to the Hague, not Saudi Arabia.
--the BB