NYT, pg1: Truckers for Iraq's Pony Express Risk It All for a Paycheck

[DeepModem Mom]

SUPPLIES
Truckers of Iraq's Pony Express Are Risking It All for a Paycheck


Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times
Tankers near Nasiriya, Iraq, wait to load their fuel before making deliveries to American military bases.

By JAMES GLANZ
Published: September 27, 2004


SAFWAN, Iraq - They go by names like Mac Daddy, Milkman and Tango One. When a snaking convoy of 18-wheelers is moving smoothly, they are cadillackin'. And when word crackles on the radio that the lead truck has passed from another impossibly rutted, kidney-bruising dirt road onto a stretch of asphalt, they are about to hit the hardball.

A few months ago, many of the truckers were driving for companies like Chick-fil-A and Office Depot. Now, lured by paychecks that are double or triple what they earned in the United States, these civilians are risking their lives - and occasionally losing them - to deliver things as mundane as detergent, spare parts, Froot Loops and fuel across hundreds of miles of hostile desert to the American troops in Iraq.

The scale of the operation is astonishing, with about 700 trucks on Iraqi roads on a typical day. The trucks deliver 40 million gallons of fuel a month, for example, and keep shelves stocked for half a million meals daily at more than 60 military bases across the country. And the fare at those bases is splendid, ranging from Omaha-cut steaks to deep-dish pizza to a respectable chicken Kiev. Whatever judgment history renders on this war, it will always be remembered as well victualed.

Many of the same convoys are heavily populated with Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Egyptians, Somalis and other drivers who receive their orders through translators in dusty staging areas but who take the same risks as the Americans. Few, if any, of the trucks are driven by Iraqis....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/27/international/middleeast/27convoy.html?pagewanted=all&position=

[truthisfreedom]

1. in an economy left devastated by complete inattention and irresponsibility

by president gush, it's a living.

[AIJ Alom]

2. What's worse is that some of the trailers are empty !!!

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/politics/8726376.htm

Trucks made to drive without cargo in dangerous areas of Iraq

BY SETH BORENSTEIN
Posted on Fri, May. 21, 2004
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Empty flatbed trucks crisscrossed Iraq more than 100 times as their drivers and the soldiers who guarded them dodged bullets, bricks and homemade bombs.

Twelve current and former truckers who regularly made the 300-mile re-supply run from Camp Cedar in southern Iraq to Camp Anaconda near Baghdad told Knight Ridder that they risked their lives driving empty trucks while their employer, a subsidiary of Halliburton Inc., billed the government for hauling what they derisively called "sailboat fuel."

Defense Department records show that Kellogg Brown and Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, has been paid $327 million for "theater transportation" of war materiel and supplies for U.S. forces in Iraq and is earmarked to be paid $230 million more. The convoys are a lifeline for U.S. troops in Iraq hauling tires for Humvees, Army boots, filing cabinets, tools, engine parts and even an unmanned Predator reconnaissance plane.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Unbelievable! More from the article --

"James Warren of Rutherfordton, N.C., one of the fired KBR drivers, said he drove empty trucks through Iraq more than a dozen times. Besides the risks to the truckers, the six National Guard or Army escorts who provided security were also in danger, he said.

The KBR driver who shot the videotape of the 15 empty trailers on the road in January described it this way: 'This is just a sample of the empty trailers we're hauling called "sustainer." And there's more behind me. There's another one right there. ... This is fraud and abuse right here.'"

[AIJ Alom]

4. if you think this is bad. you should read the senate testimony of other

former KBR employees.

[AIJ Alom]

5. Check this out. More instances of Halliburton Fraud.

http://halliburtonhell.blogspot.com/
6.17.2004
GOP refusing to allow testimony on Halliburton spending
By Seth Borenstein Knight Ridder Newspapers

Those former employees contend that the politically connected firm:

-Lodged 100 workers at a five-star hotel in Kuwait for a total of $10,000 a day while the Pentagon wanted them to stay in tents, like soldiers, at $139 a night.

-Abandoned $85,000 trucks because of flat tires and minor problems.

-Paid $100 to have a 15-pound bag of laundry cleaned as part of a million-dollar laundry contract in peaceful Kuwait. The price for cleaning the same amount of laundry in war-torn Iraq was $28.

-Spent $1.50 a can to buy 37,200 cans of soda in Kuwait, about 24 times higher than the contract price.

-Knowingly paid subcontractors twice for the same bill.

[AIJ Alom]

6. Congress and Halliburton: PERFECT Together !

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=108x115879

[othermeans]

7. Thank God for no bid contracts. nt