US embassy to ‘localise’ Iraq operations

AFP February 16, 2012

BAGHDAD — The United States embassy in Iraq is to increase its reliance on local goods and services as part of efforts to cut the size of its mission, the largest in the world, a top State Department official said on Wednesday.

Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Thomas Nides told reporters during a visit to Baghdad that as part of such efforts, “we’ll look at the contract piece,” specifically “purchasing more local goods and services.”

“We’re basically telling our contractors we expect them to source more of the food internally than bringing it over the border, and so that will obviously lessen our dependence on some of the contracts,” Nides said.

“We have a very much aggressive hire … Iraqi programme, meaning that we’re being very clear not only to our contractors but even here for our staff to begin to localise much of our operations,” he said.

Contractors, he said, have been given targets to reach.

Please read the entire article here

Americans Missing, Left Behind in Iraq, mostly contractors

“Basically, the mentality of the Secretary of State seems to be that if the

United States loses a member  of the United States military,

then the loss becomes a relevant statistic on the ‘War on Terror,’

when the United States loses a contractor . . .

then there is no accounting for the loss of life. . . .

a result, the true cost in lives and money

of the ‘War on Terror’ is understated.” 

from Joshua Munns case

While the DPMO shows only 4 Americans left behind in Iraq

Missing in Action: Service Members and Civilian Contractors left behind

Susie Dow at The Missing Man has compiled a list which includes 18 Americans left behind, the majority of those being Civilian Contractors

Below is a chart showing the name, incident date, an expired link to an incident report (SIGACT), and status of those Americans known to be missing and/or held hostage in Iraq in table format. The chart shows an estimated 18 missing Americans of whom, the names of 6 are unknown. An additional 2 American’s names are known but the date of incident is not.

Text of available SIGACT reports are posted at SIGACT Reports of Americans Missing in Iraq.

Americans Missing in Iraq – as of January 21, 2012

Names missing from the chart below: Hussain al-Zurufi and Bob Hamze

	Date	Name – incident report	Status
1	Oct 9, 2003	Kirk von Ackermann	missing	1
2	Apr 9, 2004	Thomas Hamill (link expired)Convoy Attack	escaped
3	Apr 9, 2004	Nicholas Evan Berg	deceased
4	Apr 9, 2004	William Bradley	deceased
5	Apr 9, 2004	Pfc Keith Matthew Maupin	deceased
6	Apr 9, 2004	Timothy E Bell  Convoy Attack	missing	2
7	May 3, 2004	Aban Elias	missing	3
8	Aug 13, 2004	Micah Garen	released
9	Sept 16, 2004	Jack Henlsey	deceased
10	Sept 16, 2004	Olin Eugene Armstrong Jr	deceased
11	Oct 10, 2004	Paul Taggart	released
12	Nov 1, 2004	Roy Hallums	released
13	Nov 2, 2004	Dean Sadek	missing	4
14	Apr 11, 2005	Jeffrey Ake	missing	5
15	May 17, 2005	Neenus Y. Khoshaba – incident?	missing	6
16	Aug 2, 2005	Steven Charles Vincent	deceased
17	Sept 27, 2005	Abbas Kareem Naama (Tim)	missing	7
18	Nov 25, 2005	Ronald Alan Schulz	deceased
19	Nov 26, 2005	Thomas William Fox	deceased
20	Dec 2, 2005	unknown #1	missing	8
21	Jan 7, 2006	Jill Carroll	released
22	Jun 16, 2006	Pfc Kristian Menchaca	deceased
23	Jun 16, 2006	Pfc Thomas Tucker	deceased
24	Oct 23, 2006	Sgt Ahmed Qusai al-Taayie	missing	9
25	Nov 16, 2006	Jonathon Michael Cote	deceased
26	Nov 16, 2006	Paul Christopher Johnson-Reuben	deceased
27	Nov 16, 2006	Joshua Mark Munns   Torture	deceased
28	Nov 16, 2006	John Roy Young	deceased
29	Nov 27, 2006	Maj Troy Lee Gilbert (deceased)	missing	10
30	Jan 5, 2007	Ronald J Withrow	deceased
31	Jan 27, 2007	unknown #2 – incident?	missing	11
32	Jan 27, 2007	unknown #3 – incident?	missing	12
33	Feb 1, 2007	unknown #4 Iraqi-American	missing	13
34	Mar 3, 2007	Adnan al-Hilawi	missing	14
35	Apr 25, 2007	unknown #5	missing	15
36	May 12, 2007	Sgt Alex Ramon Jimenez	deceased
37	May 12, 2007	Pfc Byron W Fouty	deceased
38	May 25, 2007	unknown #6	missing	16
39	Aug 17, 2007	unknown #7	missing	17
40	summer 2008	unknown #8	missing	18
41	May 21, 2009	Jim Kitterman	deceased
42	Jan 23, 2010	Issa T Salomi	released

A Military Cutback We Can’t Afford: Fighting Tropical Diseases

Leishmaniasis at The Iraq Infections

“In the coming years leishmaniasis may become the most important condition you have never heard of among veterans”

Barbara Herwaldt, CDC, on Leishmaniasis

Contractors will be even less likely to be diagnosed and/or treated timely or effectively despite the possibility you can transmit this to your family

Peter Hotez & James Kazura at The Atlantic

In recent months, many politicians and presidential hopefuls have called for budget reductions, and many have specifically targeted military spending for cutbacks. Unfortunately, even programs proven to be cost effective are vulnerable to cuts. Medical research for our troops is no exception to this rule — programs such as the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) often find themselves low on the priority list despite their crucial role in saving the lives of our troops on the battlefield and here at home.

One important area of research is tropical medicine. During World War II and the Vietnam War, more than one million service members acquired tropical infections such as malaria, dengue fever, hookworm, and typhus, and many of these diseases continued to plague our veterans after they returned home. Today, American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan still face formidable tropical disease threats, especially from a disease transmitted by the bite of sand flies known as leishmaniasis, which can cause a disfiguring ulcer in one form, and a serious systemic condition that clinically resembles leukemia in another. In the coming years leishmaniasis may become the most important condition you have never heard of among veterans.

WRAIR’s leishmaniasis diagnostic laboratory is the only one of its kind in the world, so each time funding is slashed our military loses considerable expertise and capabilities in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of this devastating disease. For example, in the years prior to the Gulf War, the WRAIR leishmaniasis program was officially decommissioned and all research was halted. Only after cases of leishmaniasis among U.S. forces exposed to sand-fly bites in the Iraqi desert were the remaining leishmaniasis experts at WRAIR quickly assembled and tasked with making up for lost time. In 2002, the WRAIR leishmaniasis program was again dissolved only to be urgently activated once more with the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. The interruptions to the WRAIR leishmaniasis program are part of much larger budget cuts across all of WRAIR’s tropical infectious disease research programs. There is no end to the irony of such cutbacks given that they coincide with the activation in 2008 of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), charged with fighting the war on terror across the African continent. Today, sub-Saharan Africa has the largest number of cases of tropical diseases anywhere in the world. Many of these tropical infections, such as river blindness and African sleeping sickness, have been shown to destabilize communities and may actually promote conflict in the region.

Please see the original and read more here

Flexing Muscle, Baghdad Detains U.S. Contractors

“While private organizations are often able to resolve low-level disputes and irregularities, this issue is beyond our ability to resolve,” the International Stability Operations Association, a Washington-based group that represents more than 50 companies and aid organizations that work in conflict, post-conflict and disaster relief zones, said in a letter on Sunday to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Doug Brooks, president of the organization, said in a telephone interview that the number of civilian contractors who have been detained was in the “low hundreds.” He added in an e-mail on Sunday, “Everyone is impacted, but the roots have more to do with political infighting than any hostility to the U.S.”

The New York Times January 15, 2012

BAGHDAD — Iraqi authorities have detained a few hundred foreign contractors in recent weeks, industry officials say, including many Americans who work for the United States Embassy, in one of the first major signs of the Iraqi government’s asserting its sovereignty as a result of the American troop withdrawal last month

The detentions have occurred largely at the airport in Baghdad and at checkpoints around the capital after the Iraqi authorities raised questions about the contractors’ documents, including visas, weapons permits, and authorizations to drive certain routes. Although no formal charges have been filed, the detentions have lasted from a few hours to nearly three weeks.

The crackdown comes amid other moves by the Iraqi government to take over functions that had been performed by the United States military and to claim areas of the country it had controlled. In the final weeks of the military withdrawal, the son of Iraq’s prime minister began evicting Western companies and contractors from the heavily fortified Green Zone, which had been the heart of the United States military operation for much of the war.

Just after the last American troops left in December, the Iraqis stopped issuing and renewing many badges, weapons licenses and other authorizations. The restrictions created a curious sequence of events in which contractors were being detained for having expired documents that the government would not renew.

The Iraqi authorities have also imposed new limitations on visas, a new twist on a longstanding issue for foreigners in Iraq in which the rules for gaining approval appear to change every few months. In some recent cases, contractors have been told they have 10 days to leave Iraq or face arrest in what some industry officials call a form of controlled harassment.

Earlier this month, Iraqi authorities kept scores of contractors penned up at Baghdad’s international airport for nearly a week until their visa disputes were resolved. Industry officials said more than 100 foreigners were detained; American officials acknowledged the detainments but would not put a number on them.

Latif Rashid, a senior adviser to the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, and a former minister of water, said in an interview that the Iraqis’ deep mistrust of security contractors had led the government to strictly monitor them. “We have to apply our own rules now,” he said.

Private contractors are integral to postwar Iraq’s economic development and security, foreign businessmen and American officials say, but they remain a powerful symbol of American might, with some Iraqis accusing them of running roughshod over the country.

An image of contractors as trigger-happy mercenaries who were above the law was seared into the minds of Iraqis after several violent episodes involving private sector workers, chief among them the 2007 shooting in Baghdad’s Nisour Square when military contractors for Blackwater killed 17 civilians.

Iraq’s oil sector alone, which accounts for more than 90 percent of the government’s budget, relies heavily on tens of thousands of foreign employees. The United States Embassy employs 5,000 contractors to protect its 11,000 employees and to train the Iraqi military to operate tanks, helicopters and weapons systems that the United States has sold them.

The United States had been providing much of the accreditation for contractors to work in Iraq, but after the military withdrawal, that role shifted to the Iraqi bureaucracy around the time when the government was engulfed in a political crisis and when Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, fearing a coup, was moving tanks into the Green Zone.

The delays for visa approvals have disrupted the daily movement of supplies and personnel around Iraq, prompting formal protests from dozens of companies operating in Iraq. And they have raised deeper questions about how the Maliki government intends to treat foreign workers and how willing foreign companies will be to invest here.

“While private organizations are often able to resolve low-level disputes and irregularities, this issue is beyond our ability to resolve,” the International Stability Operations Association, a Washington-based group that represents more than 50 companies and aid organizations that work in conflict, post-conflict and disaster relief zones, said in a letter on Sunday to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

Please see the original and read more here

Halliburton, KBR win appeal of Fisher vs Halliburton on Exclusive Remedy Clause of Defense Base Act

The Defense Base Act’s Exclusive Remedy “A License to Kill”

The Exclusive Remedy was intended to be trade off to keep injured contractors from having litigate with their employers when they are injured.  As it turns out the employers are off the hook and the injured contractors fight for years for medical care and lost wages from private insurance companies, AIG, CNA, ACE

AIG has fought the survivors and families of those killed like they were common criminals for the death, medical, and lost wages that were to be provided “forthwith”.

And don’t think something like couldn’t happen to you, your only one bomb or one sniper away.

Bloomberg  January 12, 2012

KBR Inc. (KBR) and its former corporate parent, Halliburton Co. (HAL), won’t face a jury on claims they sent unarmed civilian convoy drivers into an Iraqi battle zone in 2004, knowing the workers would be injured or killed, an appeals court ruled.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans today ruled the drivers’ claims were blocked by the Defense Base Act, a U.S. law that shields military contractors from lawsuits. The drivers were attacked and injured because of their role in support operations for the U.S. Army, which is covered under that statute, the judges said.

“Coverage of an injury under the DBA precludes an employee from recovering from his employer,” even if the worker claims the company was “substantially certain” the injuries would occur, U.S. Circuit Judge Priscilla R. Owen said in a 30-page ruling by the panel.

KBR, a Houston-based government contractor, was sued in 2005 by the families of seven drivers killed while working inIraq for the largest U.S. military contractor. The company appealed a 2010 lower-court ruling that jurors could weigh the companies’ actions without second-guessing the actions of the Army.

Unarmed Civilians

U.S. District Judge Gray Miller, who presided over the case in Houston federal court, refused to dismiss Halliburton, which spun off KBR as a separate company in 2007. Miller had also ruled that the companies couldn’t name the military as a co-defendant in the lawsuits, so the Army wasn’t required to defend its actions.

The drivers and their families claimed KBR officials fraudulently recruited workers for safe jobs in Iraq and intentionally sent unarmed civilians into a recognized combat zone in April 2004. KBR’s military-supply contract gave company officials the right to refuse assignments deemed too dangerous for civilians, according to the complaints.

KBR and Halliburton argued that they weren’t liable because they couldn’t refuse Army orders to dispatch the fuel convoys under terms of their multibillion-dollar supply contract with the U.S. military. The convoys were attacked at a time when Iraqi insurgents were escalating the fight against U.S. troops that had taken over the country to oust dictator Saddam Hussein.

The case is Fisher v. Halliburton, 10-20202, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit (New Orleans).

Mark Fisher, Triple Canopy, Never Going Back to Iraq

The Fiji Times December 31, 2011  See also at MsSparky

MARK Fisher is never going back to Iraq. Eighteen days of mental torture at the hands of the Iraqi military and the real threat of being executed at any time still replays through his mind.

Mr Fisher, who was freed by the Iraqi military after US intervention and flew home on Thursday, said he thought his life was over when soldiers ordered him and his team to kneel facing a wall and to put their hands behind their heads.

“I thought, ‘this is it’. The only thoughts going through my head were non-stop prayers. No amount of money is worth going through what happened to me and my team and no amount of training can ever prepare a person for what we experienced,” he said in the safety of his Votualevu home in Nadi yesterday.

Despite being set free on December 27, after spending Christmas in an Iraqi military cell, Mr Fisher has trouble sleeping.

The former Republic of Fiji Military Forces sergeant began working in 2009 as a contractor with Triple Canopy Incorporated ù a private company contracted by the US State Department to remove military equipment from forward operating bases (FOB) in Iraq after the US military pullout.

“That’s what we were doing when we got detained. We had just cleared a FOB when we were stopped five minutes down the road and taken to a military camp. Our captors said they had to make sure that we had the authority to remove the equipment we had with us,” the 41-year old explained.

“As far as we were concerned, we had the green light and the appropriate clearance to do so but the Iraqis thought otherwise.”

During the ordeal, Mr Fisher and his team of seven men, which included Americans and Iraqi nationals, were ordered to eat food that was thrown on the floor.

“We refused to eat it because the cell was filthy. Instead we ate fruits and bribed some of the soldiers to give us chocolates,” he said.

Although their phones were confiscated, Mr Fisher said a colonel, who was sympathetic towards them after experiencing being detained by Saddam Hussein’s regime, allowed them the use of his telephone to contact friends and relatives.

“The Americans called their embassy but I called my wife, Mariah and informed her of what had happened,” said Mr Fisher.

Mrs Fisher said she grew concerned after not hearing from her husband for a few days.

“We normally communicate via texting and when I hadn’t received anything from him for a few days, I knew something was up. When he called and told me he was detained and no one from Triple Canopy had come to see him and his men, I got really angry,” she said.

When she was finally contacted by Triple Canopy, an official said Mr Fisher and his men had been detained but they were being well looked after and housed in warm quarters.

“We were in a cold cell with no mattresses on the floor and it was winter,” Mr Fisher said.

“There was no heating and no blankets and we had to huddle to keep warm.”

When asked what got him through the 18-day ordeal and mental torture, the father of five said it was God and his family.

“The prayers and my faith plus the thoughts of my wife and five children kept me going, hoping for freedom,” he said.

The Triple Canopy team was released after US Congressman Peter King took up the case.

“If it wasn’t for him, I think we would still be there or worse still, who knows what could have happened to us.

Civilian Contractor Sean Ferguson, Triple Canopy, dies in Iraq

VISALIA, Calif. (KMPH) - November 14, 2011

A Visalia family is mourning the loss of their son in Iraq.

29-year-old Sean Ferguson received two Purple Hearts while serving our country. He joined the U.S. Army in August 2001 and retired eight years later as a Staff Sergeant after he was hurt in combat.

He returned to Baghdad to work for Triple Canopy, a private contractor that provides security and mission support services to government agencies and other organizations.

In 2005, he got a visit from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at a combat surgical hospital in northern Iraq after he was hit by a sniper the day before.

Sean was born in San Diego on July 7, 1982. He was a 2001 graduate of Mt. Whitney High School in Visalia.

The Ferguson family was notified by the U.S. Consul of Sean’s death. According to a statement obtained by KMPH News, Sean died of natural causes.

A memorial service will be held at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel located at the corner of Caldwell Ave. and Chinowth St. in Visalia on Saturday, November 19, at 10 a.m

Blown up in Iraq Eight Years Ago Today, Still getting Screwed Over by CNA

DBA CNA Anniversary

July 7, 2003

At the risk of sounding repetitious:

Merlin Clark Blown up in Iraq Eight Years Ago Today

Still getting screwed over by CNA

Iraq car bomb kills Dr. Stephen Everhart, Contractor, injures two

Update  AP Baghdad

The American civilian killed earlier Thursday was Dr. Stephen Everhart, said a U.S. State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland.

“Dr. Everhart was an American citizen who was working in Iraq for an implementing partner of the United States Agency for International Development’s Mission in Iraq. He was killed while working on a project to introduce a new business curriculum to a Baghdad university in a program supported by the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education,” she said in a statement.

“We are saddened by this tragedy and extend our thoughts and prayers to Dr. Everhart’s family and loved ones, and to the three other injured victims and their families,” she said.

Everhart worked at the American University in Cairo, where he was associate dean of the Business School and a finance professor. Before joining AUC, he worked extensively with the World Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a U.S. government agency designed to help businesses break into developing markets.

He also wrote articles on topics like international aid, corruption and financial markets.

Officials at Georgia State University said Everhart listed San Antonio, Texas, as his hometown on his registration paperwork. Everhart got both his master’s and doctorate in economics at Georgia State in Atlanta.

Mary Beth Walker, dean of the School of Policy Studies, said Everhart met his wife, Stephanie, while in graduate school there. She described him as a “hard worker” with a good sense of humor.

Walker said Everhart had contact with Georgia State faculty members in the last two weeks about his work in Iraq and said he was planning to move to Vietnam soon to work at a university there.

The State Department gave no information about how he was killed, but an Iraqi police official said the American contractors were visiting a satellite office of Mustansiriyah University in eastern Baghdad when they were hit by a roadside bomb.

By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times  June 23, 2011

The civilian contractor and another American who was wounded in the blast were attacked in eastern Baghdad on the way to a Baghdad University campus, the U.S. Embassy reports

Reporting from Baghdad—

A U.S civilian contractor was killed and another American wounded in a car bomb attack in eastern Baghdad on Thursday, according to the U.S. Embassy.

The slain American had been traveling to Baghdad University’s Mustansiriya campus when attackers detonated a car bomb near Palestine Street, a busy commercial avenue

“An American civilian working with an implementing partner of the United States Agency for International Development in Iraq was killed in a terrorist attack today in Baghdad,” embassy spokesman David Ranz said. “Two additional civilians were wounded in the attack, including one American citizen.”

At least nine U.S. soldiers have been killed in attacks this June, according to the independent website icasualties.org. Armed groups, both Shiite and Sunni, appear to be striking out at the American military and diplomatic presence ahead of the scheduled departure of U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of the year. The Iraqi government is debating whether it should ask U.S. troops to stay on after 2011.

ned.parker@latimes.com

Injured Blackwater Xe war contractor approved for treatment by AIG

Bravo to Kevin Graman for exposing AIG’s  dangerous “risk management” practices.

We too hope it is not too late for Jennifer as it has been for so many who have come before her.

A Big Salute to you both !!

Kevin Graman The Spokesman Review  June 16, 2011

A Spokane-area woman who was injured by an enemy mortar explosion while working as a helicopter mechanic in Afghanistan has received approval from a government-contracted insurance company to receive the treatment her doctors say she needs.

Jennifer Barcklay, 40, of Chattaroy, was been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury after the September 2009 attack at a forward operating base in eastern Afghanistan, where she was employed by Blackwater, the private defense security contractor now known as Xe Services.

On Wednesday, she was told that Chartis WorldSource, the giant insurance company once known as American International Group, AIG, would cover the cognitive rehabilitation therapy recommended by eight medical providers in Spokane.

“This is bittersweet,” Barcklay said. “I’m hoping it’s not too late.”

It has been more than a year since Barcklay’s providers first began recommending comprehensive cognitive rehabilitation, which is more effective the sooner it is begun. It is not offered locally.

She continues to endure seizures, memory loss, headaches, tremors and problems with her balance that prevent her from returning to work.

“Frankly, I am appalled at how many obstacles have been placed in the way of her receiving the treatment she needs,” Spokane neuropsychologist Winifred Daisley wrote the insurer on Barcklay’s behalf.

A nurse contracted by Chartis to manage Barcklay’s case was unexpectedly terminated in October after notifying the insurer that her patient was approved for treatment at the Centre for Neuro Skills in Bakersfield, Calif.

Under the Defense Base Act of 1941, defense contractors must provide medical and disability insurance for their workers in war zones. The premiums are included in the companies’ contract with the Department of Defense.

There were nearly 56,000 such claims for injuries or deaths from the start of the Iraq war to 2009. That year, a congressional investigation found that insurance companies have been slow to approve claims for injuries despite receiving millions in premiums from the federal government.

Another World War II-era law, the War Hazards Compensation Act, reimburses the employer or insurer for injuries or death to a worker caused by an act of war. The insurer is reimbursed by the taxpayers for 100 percent of the claim, plus 15 percent for administrative costs.

Chartis’s approval of Barcklay’s treatment followed a letter from the U.S. Department of Labor, recommending that she be allowed to go to the Centre for Neuro Skills.

The letter also was critical of an independent review of Barcklay’s medical records by a Chartis-contracted neuropsychiatrist in Rhode Island who appeared to diagnose the patient’s condition as psychological rather than physiological without examining her.

Please see the original story at The Spokesman Review