DCBureau.org Podcast

No Contractor Left Behind tells how American soldiers were not told they were exposed to a cancer-causing chemical at the Qarmat Ali electrical plant near Basra in the first months of the Iraq War. KBR, the Pentagon’s biggest private contractor, was supposed to clean up the site. It did not. Instead, the company and the Army exposed hundreds of soldiers to a rust inhibitor that is a well known carcinogen and did not tell them about it until years later. Many of the Army National Guard soldiers from Oregon, Indiana, and West Virginia became very ill. Several have died. You will meet some of the soldiers who were exposed and see the depositions of KBR officials who did nothing to protect the Guardsmen. The story shows how the Senate, more concerned about KBR and the Pentagon than the health of our soldiers, left the investigation into this tragedy to the Democratic Policy Committee. The DPC is powerless to compel testimony from witnesses, or subpoena documents, or control the budgets of the Pentagon or the Veterans Administration to help these men who are facing huge health bills and years of medical treatment.