Private Contractors Hoard Water From US Soldiers in Iraq
We’ve all heard stories of how US soldiers in Iraq have been forced to travel in Humvees lacking armor protection; however, the shortage in military supplies includes basic necessities.
Many soldiers stationed all over Iraq lack adequate supplies of drinking water. Commanders have been forced to steal water from the private contractors to meet the basic needs of their troops.
An Army training document on preventing heat casualties state that in hot desserts, a soldier can lose up to four gallons of water per day. A 1957 field manual, states “in hot deserts, you need a minimum of one gallon (of water) per day” for survival. Army Staff Sgt. Dustin Robey explains, “We were rationed two bottles of water a day…We were on missions, I ran out of water.”
Faced with water shortages, US soldiers have turned to drinking untreated water found inside raided houses resulting in high rates of dysentery. Eventually Robey’s commander led his troops to the Baghdad International Airport along one of the riskiest routes in Iraq to “steal” water from civilian contractors. At the airport, Robey discoverd pallets of water that were not being distributed to the troops.
Robey’s story is not unusual. Private Hannah describes, “My sergeant told my lieutenant we didn’t have enough water and he said go find some.” Hannah’s troop also found water at civilian contractor facility where, “We’d just run out and start grabbing cases of water and start throwing them in the gunner’s hatch.” Soldiers can eat Subway and Burger King, but they can’t get clean water. The contractor to blame was KBR.
KBR has no formalized training employess involved in water operations. At Camp Ar Ramadi, soldiers’ sinks and showers were supplied with untreated wastewater. Former KBR employee Ben Carter explains, “That water was two to three times as contaminated as the water out of the Euphrates River…You’re standing in what’s essentially a sauna of microorganisms. Your eyes, ears, anyplace there’s a cut, a person would be at risk of containing a pathogen.”
In 2007, private contractors outnumbered US troops in Iraq. There are many things wrong with the system of using private civilian contractors in military conflicts, but putting such contractors in charge of military personel’s basic neccessities is irresponsible. If we can’t provide the basic neccessities to our troops in the Iraq War, then they shouldn’t be there.
Image by jamesdale10 on Flickr under a Creative Commons License
Via: KHOU
This is a bunch of bull as an Army Vet, and a Contractor in Iraq. The army of today is not the army of 6 years ago this is the laziest US Army in our countries history and the Commanders are not held accountable. It is sad to see it but most soldiers are Fobits, and Cobits, and most sleep on couches in their office while the Infantry, SF, MP’s, EOD, Cav and Contractors do all the work (I know I see it every day). (Plus Cobits/Fobits get saturday’s and sunday’s off every week), gripe about their air conditioning not working well enough, take one sip from their water and not have the descency to throw it in the trash, Spend all day downloading Mp3’s and then go back to the states and say they have PTSD because a rocket hit 10 miles accoss base and may have hurt some one.
They do it to keep from deploying again while the Combat troops and Contractors have the integrity to be honest and keep doing what they do. People in the states all these stories are written by winers who did not have the initiative to walk the hundred 50 to 100 yards to get the water like the contractors and real troops do (Their commanders are jacked up, They get to decide how much water they want) (They have college degrees but do not bother to read their SOP’s) If they did they would notice that the contact information says they can request more water. They write their memorandum’s and their statement of work not the contractors.
Then the Fobits/Cobits stack the water pallets they stole, up infront of their fire exits and plug in daisy chains so they can run their DVD players, and their MP3 players. Thank god for Combat troops and contractors. At least some one in Iraq is doing some work. The funny thing is that the burn pits have nothing to do with any contractor companies they are solely the army who hired turkish guys who care nothing about polution. But you cant sue the Army so you have to blame some one, but trust me the contractors has good lawyers and it will all come out in the end, that this was the Army’s responsibility.
That story was pretty funny/entertaining. None of it is remotely true, except for the non potable shower water. It makes no sense to use drinkable water to shower, a waste. I like the facts they used to back up their allegations. Being in Iraq for 4 years i have never seen this, or heard of anything so wild. I have been deployed in the military and also as a contractor. I would like to see the author do a 2nd part of this story with proof. Oh wait she can not do that because there is none.
If you think the story is fake, then take it up with the military personnel & contractors who are reporting in it.
Total BS. I was in Iraq in 2005-2006 and never had a drinking water shortage. Pallets of bottled water were available when you needed them. The only non-potable water we were exposed to were in the latrine trailers and showers. That was ROWPU’d and we knew not to consume it. I am thankful we had KBR. They were great folks and did great work supporting us.