The Nation reports on another contractor accusing KBR of covering up gang rape among their employees.
That dawn, naked, covered in blood and feces, bleeding from her anus, she found a US soldier she did not know lying naked in the bed next to her: his gun lay on the floor beside the bed, she could not rouse him and all she could remember of the night before was screaming and screaming as the soldier anally penetrated her while a colleague who worked for defense contractor KBR held her hand–but instead of helping her, as she had hoped, he jammed his penis in her mouth.
Over the next few weeks Smith would be told to keep quiet about the incident by a KBR supervisor. The camp’s military liaison officer also told her not to speak about what had happened, she says. And she would follow these instructions. “Because then, all of a sudden, if you’ve done exactly what you’ve been instructed not to do–tell somebody–then you’re in danger,” Smith says.
Read the whole thing. Her story is nauseating — the hurdles she’s forced to endure seem Kafkaesque. Jamie Leigh Jones was not alone. She is using a pseudonym not only to avoid the metascrutiny she would be subjected to otherwise, but because she is going back — if she doesn’t she loses her family’s health insurance, critical for her husband who suffered a partial stroke the day she returned from Iraq.
According to the order, imposed by Paul Bremer, US defense contractors in Iraq cannot be prosecuted in the Iraqi criminal justice system. While they can technically be tried in US federal court, the Justice Department has shown no interest in prosecuting her case. In fact, for more than two years now, the DOJ has brought no criminal charges in the matter. Representative Ted Poe, a Texas Republican who has taken up Jones’s cause, reports that federal agencies refuse to discuss the status of the investigation; meanwhile, in December, the DOJ refused to send a representative to the related Congressional hearing on the matter.
Even more appalling, the Justice Department, which can and should prosecute most of these cases, has declined to do so.
Her alleged attackers are effectively immune from criminal prosecution unless a President willing to administer justice can be found. The only way she and others like her (one firm has fifteen clients with sexual assault, sexual harassment and retaliation complaints against Halliburton, KBR, and SEII) can seek justice is through the US Justice Department, or Michael Mukasey. The only person he listens to is George W. Bush. January can’t come soon enough.
If I were Lisa Smith I’d accidentally amputate the dick off the next asshole who came to me for medical help after raping me. What are they gonna do, sue for malpractice? All contractors are immune from any criminal liability whatsoever right? KBR surely will have her back.
Conservatively Liberal
Late night working on the motorcycle, and I take a break to find this? Holy shit! I hope she can remain anonymous because the freepers are going to be going after her. Our daughter is 21, and if something like this happened to her I would kill the sons of bitches if I could get my hands on them.
More ‘compassionate conservatism’ from the Justice Department? Is this the new version of ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’? This kind of crap is demoralizing to hear, especially coming out of that shit pot of a mess we are in over there.
I would say ‘God help us’, but I have a feeling God is ready to wash his hands of us. Not that I am particularly religious, but hey…
Bedlam
Has there been any reason given why this issue and all the others aren’t being persued?
I cant get my mind around a Justice Department completely uninterested in such horrors.
As a brit, I can only hope my government would have a higher concern for its citizens than this disgusting display.
Truly shocking.
Keith
Sure you don’t mean Michael Mukasey (unless she got a DWI, and Gonzalez is back at his old digs instead of giving speeches)?
Tom in Texas
Keith:
Fixed. Thanks.
Texpope
Let’s see … our President has on many occassions highlighted the evils of sex slave trafficing in his public speeches, declaring at the UN “those who create these victims and profit from their suffering must be severely punished”.
The Justice Department has fetishized prosecution of consensual prostitution, from dedicating FBI task forces to chasing prostitutes in New Orleans in the summer prior to 9/11 … to the Elliot Spitzer investigation.
Yet multiple instances of KBR employees in Iraq engaging in vile gangrapes of female contractors? Not such a big deal.
The mind struggles to find some consistency of approach, and lights upon one thing.
Dick Cheney doesn’t have close relationships with global sex slave traders, or with any prostitution rings in the UN.
Kudos to Ted Poe for pressing the Jones case. Shame on every other “family values” Congressperson of either party who continues to be mute.
I await the Rush Limbaugh bit telling us that this sort of thing happens at fraternities at US colleges all the time … just another harmless “prank”.
jake
Fixed.
Wilfred
After repeatedly releasing soldiers and marines who confessed to killing Iraqi civilians, after destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of others and ruining whatever was left of a culture we have to get worked up because a white girl got raped?
Goddamn.
Nikki
If this happening to American women, can you imagine what’s happening to Iraqi women?
Xenos
KBR, the company implicated, with others, of tolerating sexual abuse of girls in Bosnia, and of importing young women from Thailand to work in the Middle East, taking their passports, and then pimping them out, is thought to tolerate the rape of young American women?
I am shocked, shocked! Well, I am not surprised, but this sort of business should always be shocking.
There are a bunch of corporations we need to liquidate. If we can shut down Arther Andersen for shredding documents we ought to shut down KBR, Halliburton, and Dyncorp for their many crimes. It might trigger a coup attempt, but we have to do it.
Thepanzer
Who could’ve thought that creating a legal bermuda triangle in the middle of a war zone would lead to people behaving like they’re untouchable? This is likely just the tip of the iceberg. We’ll have to see, years down the road, how many more stories of rape, graft, and carnage come to light once people have emotional distance from the events they were part of.
On a side note, you could not pay me enough to go to Iraq as a contractor. It’s a fucking warzone. It’s bad enough that if you try to rebuild the country you can have your head sawed off like Nick Berg, even worse you also have to watch out for the “good guys” who will only anally rape you and then have their supervisors threaten you if you try to do anything about it.
Who are the good guys over there again?
Dayv
The ones defending their homes and families from enemies both domestic and foreign.
dricey
In the hours before he leaves office, George Bush will just give a blanket pardon to all the contractors, soldiers, and members/employees of his ‘Administration’ who committed any crimes of any nature during his time in office.
And if he doesn’t, President ‘Honest John’ McCain will pardon them after he’s sworn in.
The Republicans are the party of Jesus Christ and moral values, you know.
Xenos
No-one has ever tested in court the validity of a pardon issued before the criminal in question was so much as indicted. Ironically, The end result of Bush doing something like this will be a major reduction in presidential pardon power.
daddy4mak
you know…I and no one else believed those pictures back in 2003 of websites puporting to show Iraqi women being humiliated and raped (in the face).
But then there was this story by John Murtha in Haditha of a 14 year old girl being raped and killed (and the rest of her family was killed)..so I’m sure it’s not that uncommon.
Only one of those marines is being pursued, the charges against all the rest have been dropped.
I wonder how many other Iraqi women had to suffer. We will never know.
ithaqua
Given that I was accused earlier of not caring about genuine harm to women, I’d just like to say that this is a loathsome story, and I hope – but don’t expect – that at some point Ms. Jones will get some measure of justice for herself.
That being said, the only unique part of this story is that it occurred in Iraq, where the law’s writ runneth not – that is, rape is de jure not criminal, instead of being de facto not criminal, as it is in the Western world.
For example, this Guardian story: 50,000 rapes per year, 600 convictions for rape.
It’d be nice if the only thing keeping Ms. Jones’ rapists from justice was the loophole that immunizes civilian contractors; thanks to the American rape culture, though, that’d just be the first step. She’d then have to prove that (i) the sex occurred, (ii) that she actively fought against it – apparently being passed out drunk around a man is implied consent in the United States, (iii) that she wasn’t ‘asking for it’ by wearing a short skirt or whatever… all those straws that pro-rapist American juries grasp at to keep rapists out of jail.
“If I were Lisa Smith I’d accidentally amputate the dick off the next asshole who came to me for medical help after raping me. What are they gonna do, sue for malpractice? All contractors are immune from any criminal liability whatsoever right? KBR surely will have her back.”
Again, it’s not that KBR don’t punish people who commit crimes against them. It’s that they don’t see rape as a crime.
ithaqua
“I hope she can remain anonymous because the freepers are going to be going after her.”
No kidding.
“While they can technically be tried in US federal court, the Justice Department has shown no interest in prosecuting her case.”
This probably has nothing to do with the Justice Department being staffed by Bush cronies. The American ‘justice’ system tends not to bother prosecuting rapists in general. The fact that not prosecuting this case benefits Reichwing warmongers is just icing on the cake. So, when Tom writes:
“Her alleged attackers are effectively immune from criminal prosecution unless a President willing to administer justice can be found. The only way she and others like her (one firm has fifteen clients with sexual assault, sexual harassment and retaliation complaints against Halliburton, KBR, and SEII) can seek justice is through the US Justice Department, or Michael Mukasey. The only person he listens to is George W. Bush. January can’t come soon enough.”
he’s being hopelessly naive. Under current pro-rapist American law, this situation – where the only medical records of the rapes were kept by KBR and doubtlessly destroyed, where it’s only the word of various women against their attackers’, in a legal paradigm where the burden of proof lies on the victim to prove that sex was nonconsensual – even if US law somehow gained jurisdiction, none of the men involved would ever see the inside of a cell, and the Justice Department doesn’t bother prosecuting cases it can’t win unless the defendant is a Democrat.
Xenos
Since Smith did not even dare get medical assistance at first, so there is not going to be any documentary evidence of the rape other than her own statements. Any spoliation of evidence would help her in a civil suit, although it sounds like there may not be a jurisdiction under which she can seek redress.
I would think there would be some pretty strong arguments for defeating the arbitration clause in her contract, but given the type of Federalist Society jerks that Bush has filled our courts with I am afraid it would be a long shot.
Time to recite the glibertarian magic words for making injustice disappear: “Sucks to be her – she shoulda known better.”
Wilfred
FWIW:
Singularity
I was under the impression that “Smith” was raped by two soldiers (perhaps Sodomized would be the better term, since it might actually rouse the anger of the pseudo-moralist Right with it’s Biblical implications). KBR didn’t employ the rapists, it just did everything possible to cover up for them.
On another note, imagine how wide-spread this behavior could be in Iraq, where testosterone-enraged armed men roam the streets interacting with veil-covered women on a daily basis. Now think about the fact that those men are going to be coming back here when this is over.
dadanarchist
How long until Ted Poe’s “conservative credentials” are revoked by the dead-end squad?
joe
That’s a rather unfortunate choice of words.
Grim Reaper
This woman should receive justice for this atrocity. I am sick of all the talk about freedom and democracy when our own civilians act like animals. Actually, animals are better behaved. Sickening.
TenguPhule
A much simpler solution would be to give the Iraqis enough information on her attackers and let them deal with it.
A few more heads getting cut off is no big deal.
Tom in Texas
We’re sending them over there so we don’t have to arrest them over here.
Blue Raven
I deleted a very snarky opening paragraph to this, but I still want to note I found this comment overly dismissive. Considering how a friend of mine developed PTSD in the Navy thanks to the cherry on the sundae of her childhood of sexual assault the Navy refused to prosecute compounded with an abortion the doctor refused to anesthetize her for because she clearly deserved the additional torture, I may have a hot button here. Each such incident must be brought to light. The system is corrupt, and it must be discussed. If you didn’t intend to dismiss the fact yet another woman has been attacked by people the taxpayers are supporting, I couldn’t tell. Yes, there are a lot of other outrages. They all should be discussed. This one is no less important because of the race of the victim.
Brachiator
Careful now, you’re moving into Jeremiah Wright territory, and his stern admonition, “God damn America.”
But as we have been so carefully instructed by conservatives, if we don’t passively accept every atrocity committed by a contractor, then the terrorists will have won.
/snark because the only other recourse is to scream