Editor&Publisher/AP: 'L.A. Times' Defies KBR, Publishes Probe on Deaths of Truckers
Published: September 03, 2007
LOS ANGELES Senior managers for defense contractor KBR Inc. (KBR) rejected the advice of their own security advisers in April 2004, ordering their truck drivers to speed through a five-mile combat zone in Iraq to deliver jet fuel to the U.S. military, according to a newspaper investigation. At least six civilian drivers and two U.S. soldiers died following that decision, raising anew questions about the military's reliance on civilian contractors in war zones.
The families and some survivors of the doomed convoy are suing the Houston- based company and are requesting a federal investigation of KBR's role in the incident. The Los Angeles Times reviewed emails cited in a May 22 letter the plaintiffs' lawyers sent to the U.S. Justice Department. The newspaper also interviewed KBR truck drivers and former military officials and reviewed internal memos, emails, court-sealed depositions and a U.S. Army report about the deaths.
KBR attorneys and company officials declined to comment to the Los Angeles Times and requested the newspaper "refrain from publishing" the material under court seal....
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Documents show that on April 8, 2004, a day before the deadly attacks, KBR's security advisers were united in telling their bosses to suspend convoys. One KBR driver had died and 70 more had been attacked that day....
But documents indicate those concerns ran counter to the wishes of top officials at KBR, which today is a separate company but then was a subsidiary of Halliburton Co., the company once run by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. They were under pressure to fulfill KBR's multibillion dollar contract with its top customer, the U.S. Army, according to the newspaper....
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