Toxic Profits: DPC Demands Answers On KBR’s Sodium Dichromate Leak
The Democratic Policy Committee is still pushing for answers and accountability on the sodium dichromate leak issue in Iraq. You’ll recall that Halliburton subsidiary KBR was in charge of operations at a water facility in Iraq when this happened:
KBR’s employees and American military personnel at the facility are all alleged to have been exposed to sodium dichromate:
…"These soldiers were bleeding from the nose, spitting blood," said Danny Langford, an equipment technician from Texas brought to work at the Qarmat Ali Water treatment plant in 2003. "They were sick."
"Hundreds of American soldiers at this site were contaminated" while guarding the plant, Langford said, including members of the Indiana National Guard.
Langford is one of nine Americans who accuse KBR, the lead contractor on the Qarmat Ali project and one of the largest defense contractors in Iraq, of knowingly exposing them to sodium dichromate, an orange, sandlike chemical that is a potentially lethal carcinogen. Specialists say even short-term exposure to the chemical can cause cancer, depress an individual’s immune system, attack the liver, and cause other ailments.
The answers thus far from the Pentagon, KBR and Halliburton? *crickets*


