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No Contractor Left Behind Part I: KBR, the Pentagon and the Soldiers Who Paid

No Contractor Left Behind is a series chronicling how a toxic time bomb followed three Army National Guard units home from Iraq. It reveals how a notorious military contractor exposed American soldiers to a cancer-causing carcinogen on the battlefield and how the Pentagon tried to downplay the consequences. And it describes how Congress has relegated its investigation to a toothless forum that lacks the political clout and oversight powers to ensure effective accountability...

No Contractor Left Behind Part II: KBR’s Negligence

KBR, a global engineering and construction firm, has become a poster child for war profiteering. Questions about the company’s dubious activities and astronomical profits have served as powerful ammunition for those warning of what President Dwight Eisenhower called “A Military Industrial Complex,” created from a dangerous symbiosis between private corporations and the U.S. military...

No Contractor Left Behind: Part III: “Just Suck It Up and Move On”

Military Exposure Guidelines permissible exposure limit for chromium: 5,700 parts per million.

Chromium soil concentrations found by KBR samples at Qarmat Ali on August 7, 2003: 16,459 parts per million Like KBR, the military failed to look after its own at Qarmat Ali.

“Unfortunately,” Sgt. Russell Powell said in Congressional testimony, “many of the soldiers who served at Qarmat Ali are paying the consequences for the Army’s failure to warn and protect the troops.”

No Contractor Left Behind Part IV: Congress’s Powerless Probe

“When you have contractors that have demonstrated that they have fleeced the government agency or the taxpayer, I don’t think there should be a slap on the wrist or a pat on the back. They should be debarred. …This is the most significant waste and fraud in the history of our country. It’s not even close.” Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND)