Drivers say they hauled empty trailers in Iraq at U.S. expense. Their firm said nothing was amiss.
By Seth Borenstein
Inquirer Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - 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 resupply run from Camp Cedar in southern Iraq to Camp Anaconda near Baghdad said 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."
<snip>
In addition to interviewing the drivers, the Inquirer Washington Bureau reviewed KBR records of the empty trips, dozens of photographs of empty flatbeds, and a video showing 15 empty trucks in one convoy.
The 12 drivers, interviewed separately over the course of more than a month, told similar stories about their trips through hostile territory.
Thor, a driver who quit KBR and who got his nickname for using a hammer to fight off a knife-wielding Iraqi trying to climb into the cab of his truck, said his doctor recently told him he might lose the use of his right eye after a December attack. Iraqis shattered his windshield with gunfire. Glass got in his eye, and he broke two bones in his shoulder, he said.
His truck was empty at the time.
"I thought, 'What good is this?' " said Thor, who asked not to be identified further.
<more>
Link:
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/front/Note story at bottom and registration is required. Mods, I could not include link because it contains private email account.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(484 posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
