Sunday were reported 8 dead and 6 were reported wounded, Monday it was 2 dead and 15 wounded, Tuesday it was 4 dead and 2 wounded, Wednesday found 3 dead and 5 wounded, Thursday it was 6 dead and 10 wounded, Friday there were reported 3 dead and on Saturday the number killed was 3 and the number injured was 6. [Saturday's number may be 4 -- we are going with 3, use links and you'll see why.] For a total of 29 reported dead and 44 reported injured.
Other news?
The Parliament finally managed to pass an election law. And yet . . . the date of the elections is still squabbled over.
Veterans and contractors who served in Iraq (and those who served in Afghanistan) brought lawsuits against KBR for exposing them to environmental hazards which harmed them.
Saturday Rebecca S. Green (Fort Wayne Journal Gazette) reported that there were now 39 lawsuits against KBR in US federal courts. Burke O'Neil LLC is representing the veterans and contractors and they issued a press release last week which included:
KBR is accused of allowing thick, noxious smoke, coming off of flames sometimes colored blue or green by burning chemicals, to hang over U.S. bases and camps across Iraq and Afghanistan since 2004.
According to the complaints, the burn pits are so large that tractors are used to push waste onto them and the flames shoot hundreds of feet into the sky. KBR allegedly burned waste such as biohazard materials including human corpses, medical supplies, paints, solvents, asbestos, items containing pesticides, animal carcasses, tires, lithium batteries, Styrofoam, wood, rubber, medical waste, large amounts of plastics, and even entire trucks.
Susan L. Burke, Elizabeth M. Burke, and Susan M. Sajadi, of Burke O'Neil LLC, in Washington, D.C., and co-counsel represent the more than 200 veterans, KBR employee-contractors and families in the cases which are pending in 37 states.
Elizabeth M. Burke, of Burke O'Neil LLC, stated, "KBR utterly disregarded the safety of the troops when they chose to use open air burn pits and failed to use incinerators and other safer methods of waste disposal. The hazards of operating large open-air burn pits were well known, and KBR promised to minimize the environmental effects of the burn sites they operated in Iraq and Afghanistan. KBR willfully endangered these men and women who honorably served their country in military service or in support of the military."
In other contractor news, Mark Mazzetti and James Risen (New York Times) interviewed four former Blackwater execs who stated that, in December 2007, approximately one-million dollars was set aside to bribe officials in Iraq in order to get them to look the other way in the face of Blackwater's continued assaults. Whether or not the bribes were made remained unknown. Iraq's Minister of the Interior Jawad al-Bolani spoke to CNN (link has video as well as text) and stated that his ministry had launched an investigation into the assertion that Iraqi officials took bribes.
Jawad al-Bolani (via translator): Blackwater has no new positions to operate in Iraq. Blackwater has a problem and a lawsuit. Some of its employees committed a crime against innocent Iraqi civilians in Nussor Square and this case is an ongoing trial in American courts. Blackwater is a company that caused a major national tragedy. The Nussor incidient was a very difficult one and no Iraqi can ever forget it. But the Iraqi government was committed and acted responsibly for the sake of the Iraqi people and the reputation of Iraq.
Human Rights Watch released a report entitled [PDF format warning] "On Vulnerable Ground: Violence against Minority Communities in Nineveh Province's Disputed Territories." The report wasted way too much time on what ifs and maybes but, in the last pages, finally got around to reporting the abuse claims of 2 activists while they were in Kurdish custody.
