Jamie Leigh Jones, former KBR employee, testifies before U.S. Congress
January 10, 2008
In my last column, I ran a picture of the cover of a propaganda comic book concocted by the CIA that had the
line "Rescued from Rape and Slavery" at the bottom. Tens of thousands of these were dropped from airplanes on the island of
Grenada just after the U.S. invasion of the tiny island in 1983.
During the buildup to the illegal March 2003 invasion of Iraq, George Bush regularly mentioned the "Iraqi
rape rooms" and how the Iraqi public would be freed of these horrible institutions by U.S. liberation.
In fact, on October 8, 2003, George Bush told the Republican National Committee Presidential Gala, "Iraq is
free of rape rooms and torture chambers."
On September 2, 2003, Paul Bremer, the bible-toting, combat boot-wearing viceroy of Iraq made his own statement
about ridding Iraq of rape:
The Iraqi people are now free. And they do not have to worry about the secret police coming after them in
the middle of the night, and they don't have to worry about their husbands and brothers being taken off and shot, or their
wives being taken to rape rooms. Those days are over.
Bremer and Bush must be commended for their public stance against rape, but their words were utter fantasy.
They get a 100% score for lying. There were no rape rooms in Iraq and the actions Bremer stated are more in tune with what
the U.S. brought to Iraq, not what was there before March 2003.
The facts show that instead of halting rape epidemics in countries the U.S. invades, the occupiers introduce
rape to these nations; nations in which rape was virtually non-existent.
Let’s take a look at statistics supplied by the Seventh United Nations Survey of Crime Trends and Operations
of Crimininal Justice Systems that covered the years 1998 to 2000. The United States led the world by a huge margin in the
number of rapes: 89,100. There were 65 countries listed, Monserrat being #65 with seven rapes. Iraq did not even appear on
the list. Here are some more interesting facts supplied by the report:
- The U.S. puts 0.7% of its population in prison, a vastly higher percentage than any other nation.
- Russia has almost twice as many judges and magistrates as the U.S. Meanwhile, the U.S. has eight times as
much crime.
- Total crimes committed in the two-year in the U.S.: 23,677,800; number one in the world.
- Total assaults: 2,238,480; number one in the world.
The U.S. leads the world in areas of crime, violence and rape, but it considers itself the moral police of
the planet. A similar scenario would be to have Al Capone lead the FBI in its war against the mob. Or, having Ted Bundy supervise
a task force aimed at apprehending mass murderers. The only problem with this hypocrisy consists of the U.S. public believing
Reagan when he said the U.S. rid Grenada of rape or believing Bush when he said the U.S. had eradicated rape in Iraq. Rape
was not prevalent in either country, but the assertions are so dramatic that the U.S. is considered a humanitarian savior.
In the case of Iraq, rape, much like Starbuck’s, was brought into the country by U.S. military personnel
and civilian contractors. The first inklings of Iraqis being raped by U.S. troops came from the Abu Ghraib torture scandal.
Then, accusations began flowing in of U.S. soldiers raping Iraqi females (and a few males). At first, the denials were immediate
and meant to put an end to the subject. But, so many allegations came forth that it was impossible to deny them. The U.S.
strategy changed from denial to ignoring the issue.
On December 20, 2007, the Australian newspaper The Age ran a story titled "Woman Testifies She Was
Raped by U.S. Contractors in Iraq." Here are a few features:
A US woman who said she was raped by US contractors in Iraq testified in Congress today, telling legislators
that she was kept under armed guard in her trailer after reporting the incident.
Jamie Leigh Jones, now 23, said that she was gang raped inside the Baghdad Green Zone in July 2005 while she
was working for the Halliburton subsidiary KBR Inc, which has support contracts with the US military.
The US Department of Justice failed to send an attorney to the House of Representatives sub-committee hearing,
which Democrat John Conyers blasted as "outrageous" and "unacceptable".
Jones told committee members that on her fourth day in Baghdad some co-workers, who she described as Halliburton-KBR
firefighters, invited her for a drink. "I took two sips from the drink and don't remember anything after that," she said.
The next morning Jones woke up groggy and confused, and with a sore chest and blood between her legs. She
reported the incident to KBR and was examined by an army doctor, who confirmed she had been repeatedly raped vaginally and
anally …
… The rape was so brutal she is still undergoing reconstructive surgery, Jones said.
Jones tried to get her case resolved first through KBR channels, then through the US Department of Justice.
When neither course seemed to work, she gave an interview with ABC television news.
KBR has been silent on the matter, though according to ABC News the company circulated a memo among employees
signed by company president and CEO Bill Utt saying that it "disputes portions of Ms. (Jamie Leigh) Jones' version and facts."
Jones said that she knows of at least 11 other women who were raped by US contractors in Iraq.
KBR used identical methods as those employed by the U.S. government: denial. Plus, KBR said that Jones lied.
Rape is now commonplace in much of Iraq. U.S. soldiers and civilians are equal opportunity participants; they
have raped U.S. and Iraqi women. Unfortunately, it is not only U.S. citizens who are the aggressors. Some members of Shia
"death squads" have taken lessons from the occupiers and are now using rape as a security tool. Whether it be an Iraqi or
an American, virtually no offenders have been brought to justice. In one case last year, a woman accused several Iraqi policemen
of raping her. The evidence showed that she was violated. Within a day, Maliki not only refuted the woman’s accusations,
he gave medals of commendation to the rapists. After all, he was following the lead of his U.S. puppeteers.
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