Contract workers say KBR knew of exposure

Contract workers say KBR knew of exposure
The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Feb 15, 2009 15:23:23 EST

HOUSTON — Ten contractors, hired by Houston-based KBR to make repairs at a Basra water plant during the Iraq war, and dozens of National Guardsmen say the company knowingly allowed them to be poisoned by cancer-causing chemicals.

The allegations from the workers, six of whom live in or near Houston, are documented in a federal arbitration complaint pending in Houston and a related federal lawsuit filed in December by the guardsmen in Indiana, the Houston Chronicle reported Sunday.

Most of the KBR contractors were sent to Iraq around April 2003 as part of Operation Restore Iraqi Oil, a no-bid U.S. contract. They were hired to make repairs at the water plant to keep Iraq’s oil fields operating during the war. Members of the U.S. Army National Guard, most from Indiana, escorted and guarded the workers.

KBR officials have acknowledged that a dangerous anti-corrosive chemical was stored and spilled at the Qarmat Ali water plant just outside Basra. Under Saddam Hussein’s regime, the chemical was used to keep pipes free of corrosion as river water from the plant was pumped to oil fields miles away.
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