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TechnoratiAs news broke of the rape of yet another US military contractor employee in Iraq [see "Another KBR Rape Case" at thenation.com], the Senate Foreign Relations Committee convened a hearing April 9 to demand that the Justice Department explain why it has failed to prosecute a single sexual assault case in the theater since the Iraq War began.
"American women working in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to be sexually assaulted while their assailants go free," said Senator Bill Nelson, who called the hearing. Because squabbles about who has jurisdiction in these cases have proliferated, Nelson arranged to have representatives from the Defense, State and Justice departments sit down together in front of him. They were forced to listen while the latest victims testified.
Dawn Leamon, who worked for a subsidiary of KBR and had told her story to The Nation a week before, described--with her back to the packed room and her voice (mostly) steady -- being sodomized and forced to have oral sex with a KBR colleague and a Special Forces soldier two months earlier. When she reported the incident to KBR supervisors, she met a series of obstacles, she said. "They would tell me to stay quiet about it or try to make it seem as if I brought it on myself or lied about it."
Another woman, Mary Beth Kineston, who worked as a commercial trucker for KBR in Iraq, testified that she had been raped in the cab of her truck by a KBR subcontractor employee at night while waiting in line to fill her water tanker truck. She immediately reported the incident to her supervisors; no one did a rape kit test, referred her for medical treatment or even offered to escort her back through the dark to her quarters that night.
Also at the hearing was Jamie Leigh Jones, whose story made the news in December, when she alleged that her 2005 gang rape by Halliburton/KBR co-workers in Iraq was being covered up by the company and the government. Jones, who has formed a nonprofit to support the many other women with similar experiences, says forty employees of US contractors have contacted her with stories of sexual assault or sexual harassment -- and accounts of how Halliburton, KBR and the Cayman Island-based Service Employees International Inc. (SEII), a KBR shell company, either failed to help them or outright obstructed them.
As the number of women coming forward rises, Congress has begun to question why these crimes are not being prosecuted. In fact, there are several laws on the books that would allow these cases to proceed: the problem is not a lack of legal tools but a lack of will. "There is no rational explanation for this," says Scott Horton, a lecturer at Columbia Law School who specializes in the law of armed conflict. Prosecutorial jurisdiction for crimes like the alleged rapes of Jones and Leamon is easily established under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act and the Patriot Act's special maritime and territorial jurisdiction provisions. But somebody has to want to prosecute the cases.
Senator Nelson noted that the Defense Department, which has reported 742 sexual assaults against soldiers and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, has claimed that it was unable to prosecute cases involving civilians -- like defense contractor employees -- until recently. (Even among those cases where it clearly had jurisdiction, a close look at the DoD's own stats reveals a far from stellar record: among the 684 sexual assault complaints lodged by US soldiers in the Middle East, only eighty-three cases have led to courts-martial. Meanwhile, last year alone, 2,688 sexual assaults were reported globally against women serving in the US Armed Forces; disposition of these cases is pending.)
Worse, those figures represent only the official count. Given that so many women are now coming forward complaining that they have been hushed by their private-military-contractor supervisors, it's clear that the real tally is likely far higher. Even in cases where the victims do report the incidents, most complaints never see the light of day, thanks to the fine print in employee contracts, which compels employees into private arbitration instead of allowing their charges to be heard in a public courtroom. Todd Kelly, a lawyer in Houston who is trying to fight the legality of private arbitration, says his firm alone has fifteen clients with sexual assault, sexual harassment or retaliation complaints (for reporting assault and/or harassment) against Halliburton and its former subsidiary KBR, as well as SEII.
Obviously, US military contractors have an interest in avoiding the bad publicity that would follow if these complaints were not kept secret. With huge sums hanging in the balance -- KBR has an estimated $16 billion in contracts -- the stakes are high.
But such a financial incentive cannot explain why the Justice Department has failed to act. Although it has the authority to pursue criminal cases involving US military contractor employees, it has hemmed and hawed over even the tiny fraction of cases that have made their way through the maze of obstacles to land in the Justice Department's offices. Grilling Justice about these twenty-four civilian sexual assault cases, Senator Nelson demanded to know exactly how many cases Justice was pursuing -- and whether there had been a single conviction. "I don't know of any convictions for sexual assault," admitted Sigal Mandelker, deputy assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division. But, she stammered, "we do have active investigations...somewhere about...somewhere upwards of...somewhere between four and six, I believe is the number." (Leamon's attorney just learned that the department is initiating an investigation into her case.)
At the hearing, Nelson dryly observed that there was a very quick way to make sure US contractors did not force employees into private arbitration, and an easy way to force contractors to follow established protocols for sexual assault and harassment: "This might be something you want to require and include in your contracts--before you award them," he said. To which, in quick succession, the Defense, State and Justice department representatives responded that, well, they couldn't respond because this was, er, beyond their area of expertise.
Karen Houppert, special correspondent for The Washington Post Magazine and frequent Nation contributor, is the author of Home Fires Burning: Married to the Military-for Better or Worse.
Copyright © 2008 The Nation
29 Comments so far
Show AllKBR is currently being paid by the US to commit crimes against humanity. Many members of Congress have personal investments in Halliburton, KBR, Carlisle Group, etc. Ergo, our senators and representatives are profiting from business as usual, and as long as they continue to reap dividends, why should they press for justice against their own company?
There is a huge conflict of interest in all the highest places of our government. But it's not our government. The Federal Government of the USA, since 1871, is a private institution, owned mostly by Rothschild Bank, in compensation for post Civil War financial bailouts. They further pressed for the incorporation of the Constitutionally illegal, private, for profit company called the Federal Reserve Bank in 1916, which has created intentional financial depressions since it's inception, especially that of the 1930's.
We will never see anything close to justice until we remove the influences of secret, oligarchical societies from our leadership roles. Until then, criminal law will only be used to silence dissent, and manipulate the populace.
P. S. One of the things that Islam has right: rape is a capital crime.
So, Unk_Unk is still trying to publicly rationalize his own crimes of rape, eh?
Unknown_Unknownable: You are an *^%$# idiot! Rape is never an acceptable form of activity under any circumstance. This boys will be boys mentality if the reason we have so much strife and heartache in the world. Rape is a crime and should be punished accordingly asap. It seems we will have to get a new President in January 2009 to restore the "rule of law" for women serving in the military and with military contractors. I say, cut the bastards' balls off, throw them in prison, throw away the key and let them rot!
The United States has an all-volunteer military, which is unlike countries like Israel and North Korea. Therefore, in America, law does not force anyone to join the armed forces.
Some women chose to go to Iraq to make extra money! Apparently, for one reason or another, they did not like the aftermath of their decisions of working in Iraq as mercenary.
Now, some of them are claiming they were "raped" and/or "sexually assaulted", which cannot be verified from any objective point of view in a court of law.
In fact, their claims are as good as "what she says is the absolute truth, and nothing else matters" type of argument.
The retarded A.G. has practically nothing to do with it!
Grown-up men and women do things in their private lives. It is natural for them to do so by mutual consents.
40-year-old woman goes out at night to have "wild sex"; but, the next morning she feels she should have remained virgin and, then, starts blaming her male counterpart(s) responsible for her own ill-fated prior decision(s).
She simply forgets that she lost her virginity at the age of 13 with mouth full of cocks at her high school.
Women are not welcome in the military or anything having to do with the military, such as contractors. The only reason women are hired is because the law forces them to be. Rape and other forms of sexual assault are just a few of the ways women are "discouraged" from staying once they're hired and the quotas filled. Those of us who became workers in the '70s have experienced how unwelcome women were as anything beyond supervisors of the typing pool. In the military, it's still the case.
This reminds me of a job interview I had with a lawyer just a few years ago. I asked how many women and blacks were lawyers with the firm, and how many of each were partners. Out of 18 attorneys, four were women, all associates, and there were no blacks at all. Why no blacks?, I asked. Because they just never apply for open positions, she replied, with a totally straight corporate face. This was in a southern town with a respected university and law school in it.
Just to clear up an apparent misunderstanding, Sen. Nelson wasn't suggesting that contractors should agree not to rape their female employees. According to this story, he wanted the military to require its contractors to "follow established protocols for sexual assault and harassment" and to not force their employees to only use private arbitration in case of such illegal acts.
Rape must be prosecuted, whether the victim is an Iraqi or American. Now that we have DNA testing, every woman who complains, Iraqi or otherwise, is entitled to get a rape kit exam.
It seems to me ludicrous to put "we won't rape anyone" clauses in a business contract. That should be understood as automatically as "we won't kill anyone" - oh wait, that is what they are supposed to be doing.
KBR and Halliburton have the right combination to play a role in a "Handmaiden's Tale" scenario: Leadership by a group of powerful males getting lots of $$$, militaristic tasks, fundamentalist Christian facade, contempt for women, reliance on violence to keep "their" women in their place, exemption from legal responsibility for their actions.
This private army thing is very dangerous. They attract sociopaths and encourage others in that direction.
And what of the Iraqi women and girls that were raped and have no outlet to make this horror known? Most thinking and compassionate (i.e. those not like Mr. Unknown_U) realize that if rape happened to US women in Iraq, it's highly likely that the same thing happened to Iraqi women (and girls) who are even more vulnerable and have less protection.
Men, as a gender group, suffer no consequences - indeed, get monetary and ego benefits for all kinds of violence - killing and raping are the more egregious examples. Too bad these men of violence are too stupid or mentally ill to realize the huge cost to their souls.
May the Earth Goddess rid herself of them.
Unknown_Unk is apparently expressing that he's a rapist and proud of it with his, "She's lying, she wanted it," comments. Don't fall for this shill angle of turning the discussion toward this lone, unconfirmed sociopath, and away from keeping the US gov't and contractors responsible in crimes against humanity.
We need to return to the will of the People as the will of the government, not the enslavement, abuse, and murder of our or any People, in any land.
Unknown_U: are you out of your mind?
If male and female soldiers are put together in a war-zone, it is not unusual for them to engage in sexual activities. Taking that matter into the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives is unnecessary.
Those women who are now claiming that they were "raped" or "sexually assaulted" should not have been in a war-zone to begin with if they were at all so concerned about keeping themselves free of any kind of un-wanted sexual activities.
Simply put, war-zone is not for them and they willfully made wrong choices about going there.
But, they did go there. For earning extra money!
If those women could have valued their physical and mental well-being more than greenbacks that they earned as war-criminals, today they would not have been in positions to present their graphic illustrations of sexual activities to the world, which they allege were performed against their consents.
World will never know whether there were mutual consents or not. Therefore, prosecuting anyone based on another's allegations in a war-time of a war-zone is not justice.
All evil shit needs is for good thinking people to do nothing.
This stuff had better make the news! Dyncorp has had plenty of cases of it internally slaving women and not one prosecution. This is our country? I think not! Where is the rule of law? Puritans my ass.
Its a lot of people that are involved, a groin shot might not be possible. I wish to see more people informed as to where your tax dollars are going and where your politicians are going. Its all about power and control. "O"
skippyagogo,
I totally agree with the last part of your post in that the Canadian and USA governments don't care about the innocents we're killing in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor are they concerned with the rest of us here in the US. Anyone with their eyes open can clearly see this. Unfortunately, most of the US congress doesn't care either or they would have put a stop to bush, et al, a long time ago by withholding funds for the wars. Why don't we hear more outrage about this issue from our Congress? MOST DON'T CARE, WE DON'T MATTER TO THEM AND WE'RE EXPENDABLE.
As for the first part of your post, I'm going to let you have your feelings about that too. Again, I am truly sorry for your horrible experience when you were young. No one should ever go through that.
Anyone who would do this to another human has given up their claim to humanity: they've devolved to the point where they're completely under the control of their animal instincts, absent empathy, love or any of the other feelings that we generally attribute to humans. They have become biological machines devoted to killing and procreation. I agree that they should be simply shot, because they've become broken and will be a danger to the rest of us forevermore.
This having been said, why in hell would a woman, having seen what goes on over there, want anything to do with it?
Says a lot about US Soldiers that these women are not safe.
Why are these animals not groin shot the next day?
Justice comes in more than one form.
There were nurses in WW2: If one were raped, what might we guess wuld have happened?
And legal too. Wartime. Watch your ass.
Firefem;
No, my soul was not 'murdered', I reacted to what was a rather sexist remark by another person. The idea that you can't understand something unless you are a member of one gender or the other is not one that I'll agree with. Except of course being preggers, I'd never be able to wrap my mind around that concept... One doesn't need to be raped in order to understand that it's a nasty thing to happen, my original remark was a bit of a dark comment; that which doesn't kill you will make you stronger. I do recognise where the other person is at this stage of life, believe it or not, in time she'll recover; mostly. I wouldn't say I've mostly recovered, tho... But either way neither of us are dead, and my point was that death is final. As the gov't of the usa and canada don't really seem to care about the innocents that we're putting to death in Iraq as well as in the corporate world of employment, well, how could any of us expect them to spare a thought to the issue of rape.
Since Cheney gets a cut of all Haliburton contracts....does he get a piece of this action too?
skippyagogo,
I'm very sorry for what happened to you when you were 11 years old.
As an outsider to yours and AAC's rape experiences, I can see that you were, in fact, psychically murdered because your response to AAC shows no compassion for her feelings. To me, this indicates part of your soul was murdered as well. I would expect that when one is raped.
You are lucky in that it appears you've overcome your experience. Obviously AAC has not. Let her have her feelings.
AAC;
You're half right, I am male. But you are totally wrong when you say that I don't know what I'm talking about when I say that it's a minor crime compared to murder.
When I was 11 years old I was raped.
Nasty, yes, psychic murder, no. You can recover from being raped, you don't recover from death.
Please forgive my earlier outburst of anger. It is unconscionable that this kind of treatment of women would be allowed and quietly overlooked by the military and civilian justice systems. One of the earlier writers said that, "Rape is a form of psychic murder...All the support groups in the world never erase the filthy stain it spreads in your soul." Amen.
To skippyagogo41 -- Rape is NOT a minor crime compared to death. The fact that you would make this comment tells me you are male. Until you have experienced the soul-murdering horror of having your very innermost self violently penetrated by someone you hate and despise and yet cannot escape, being forced to accept this by virtue of his greater strength and his complete willingness to hurt you in service to his own ego and pleasure and sense of domination, don't you go around saying things like "Rape is a minor crime compared to death." I wanted to die, and tried to kill myself twice afterwards. It was a long time before I could even begin to live even a partial life, and I will never forget it. Even now there are times when I wish he had simply killed me. He destroyed a part of my soul that I will never get back. And to him it was nothing. Rape is a form of psychic murder, and it does irreparable harm to women. Never doubt that. All the support groups in the world never erase the filthy stain it spreads in your soul.
The Bush Military, the Civilian Contractors, and the Bush Defense, State, and "Justice" Departments are full of shit. Plain & Simple.
I wonder how many Iraqi women are raped by the "Coalition of the Willing".
It's a Biblical thing. You get this sort of thing whenever the Pentagram values women less that goats or sheep.
This conduct by the employees and management of KBR, besides being reprehensible in the extreme, also points to something even more disturbing. Mercenary armies with poor discipline usually cause much more trouble than they are worth and have been known to turn on their employers. There are very good reasons why the nation states of Europe went from mercenary to national armies in the 18th century, a history lesson that has either been forgotten or deliberately ignored.
The Gov't of the usa isn't bothered much by the rape of a nation, why would they give a damn about the rape of employees? Corporations the world over get away with killing their workers in unsafe working conditions, rape is minor compared to the loss of life... Sick buggers.
The USA is and has been a rape culture for a long time. George Bush is a rapist if not in fact then by proxy. Impeach, indict, imprison!
So, this governement, which outright murdered three thousand US citizens with a hoax terrorist attack, which stole 3.4 trillion dollars through the Pentagon to line their own pockets and fund assaults on humanity... is supposed to care about these women? They're probably flabbergasted... "Why? Them good ol' boys din't do nuthin' to them wimmins that they ain't born fer."
The people in power DO NOT CARE about us or our experiences or opinions, and they're not going to care because we complain. These people are not misguided, they are outright, truly evil. They all need to be arrested, tried for treason, and given the harshest penalties allowable.
We have to flush the system, not appeal to it. It's clear that there is no justice for citizens, and no accountability for this martial industry and international bank run oligarchy.
Aryan Male Supremacy; Gender Slavery; Human Slavery; Massive Child Abuse; Constant War; & Genocide. These are the core driving values of our genocidal Empire. These are what white America will fight to preserve, these are what our Military is sworn to preserve, NOT the Bill of Rights, NOT the Constitution, those are "quaint", those are "just words". For women to "serve" in our Military is like Black People worshiping the flat-earth genocidal Blood God from the Middle East that was used to enslave them. The Aryan tribes that adopted that Blood God call him jahweh or jehova. He is the totem of our blood drunk Empire. Worship death. Worship rape. Worship gold. Say good bye to your blood drunk empire.
"Bye Blood Drunk Empire".