Texas Woman: Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR
By Chris Jones Posted in Law — Comments (14) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.
Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave.
Now this lawsuit actually sounds like it has some legs, because the State Department actually intervened and rescued her from the shipping container!
"It felt like prison," says Jones, who told her story to ABC News as part of an upcoming "20/20" investigation. "I was upset; I was curled up in a ball on the bed; I just could not believe what had happened."
Finally, Jones says, she convinced a sympathetic guard to loan her a cell phone so she could call her father in Texas.
"I said, 'Dad, I've been raped. I don't know what to do. I'm in this container, and I'm not able to leave,'" she said. Her father called their congressman, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas.
"We contacted the State Department first," Poe told ABCNews.com, "and told them of the urgency of rescuing an American citizen" -- from her American employer.
Poe says his office contacted the State Department, which quickly dispatched agents from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to Jones' camp, where they rescued her from the container.
According to her lawsuit, Jones was raped by "several attackers who first drugged her, then repeatedly raped and injured her, both physically and emotionally."
Army doctors performed a rape kit on Ms. Jones which clearly showed that she had been raped both vaginally and anally. However, the rape kit mysteriously disappeared after it was handed over to KBR security officers.
Over two years later, the Justice Department has brought no criminal charges in the matter. Legal experts say Jones' alleged assailants will likely never face a judge and jury, due to an enormous loophole that has effectively left contractors in Iraq beyond the reach of United States law.
I have been a strident defender of allowing contractors to be immune from prosecution in Iraq. I don't really lose any sleep over Blackwater having to shoot one or more people for whatever reason.
Immunity for "contractor on Iraqi" crime is one thing, but I never considered that immunity would extend to "contractor on contractor" crimes. Or more specifically "American on American" crimes. Shooting an Iraqi in a war zone is one thing, but American contractors gang-raping a 20-year old American woman is f*cking outrageous.
Jones went on to say that KBR and Halliburton created a "boys will be boys" atmosphere in the barracks, which created an unsafe environment for females. The fact that KBR/Halliburton would even consider making the women share the same barracks with a bunch of "alpha male" contractors is almost too much to believe. If they chose to bunk with the guys so be it, but their should have been separate quarters available.
The honest to god truth is that regardless of sleeping quarters, American contractors should act like professionals rather than a bunch of rabid animals. It's this kind of crap that brings dishonor and shame to everyone who's over there trying to do good work.
There is absolutely no legitimate reason for extending immunity for crimes against co-workers. I guess that means that a contractor could shoot a U.S. Soldier and be immune, or kill a Congressman and be immune. This is getting to be a sick situation and if a little bit of immunity is gonna become this kind of immunity, then clearly there should be NO immunity.
This entire story will be featured on an upcoming episode of "20/20."
-Chris Jones
The Hot Joints
If it's true, there are more facts out there, and we can set some determined prosecutors loose to root out the problems. But I'm not going to take the word of one woman that there's some massive joint conspiracy between Halliburton and the Army to get her.
So I'm content to wait for facts.
Brian Ross. I have seen way too many shady, biased and downright fraudulent reporting from that guy to take anything at face value.
David,
Well this is such a horrible crime against a woman that I hope you can see beyond any angst you have towards the messenger.
This is also an opportunity for the President and his team to do the right thing, but I somehow doubt they will. President Bush in my view should publicly appoint a high level investigator who has Presidential authority to get to the bottom of this and do it right now. I'd call up the 'Stash, aka Mr. Bolton and send him in to get to the truth.
______________________________________
Proud member of the Barry Goldwater wing of the party !
I have been a strident defender of allowing contractors to be immune from prosecution in Iraq. I don't really lose any sleep over Blackwater having to shoot one or more people for whatever reason.
Immunity for "contractor on Iraqi" crime is one thing, but I never considered that immunity would extend to "contractor on contractor" crimes. Or more specifically "American on American" crimes. Shooting an Iraqi in a war zone is one thing, but American contractors gang-raping a 20-year old American woman is f*cking outrageous.
You'd better clarify this passage, and quickly.
Like, now.
ok, that's actually exactly what I'm doing, but a plausible explanation of the above passage is that Mr. Jones feels that opening up private security officers in a war zone to accusations and trials for murder when they were actually performing their jobs to the best of their ability is wrong.
In other words, he doesn't mean (even though what follows is what a literal reading of the text would lead one to believe) that contractors should be able to commit any crime they wish as long as it is against Iraqi's and not Americans...what I hope he meant is that if a private security officer has sufficient cause to believe someone is about to attack him or his employer, and that PSO happens to kill the person who seemed about to attack him, he shouldn't necessarily be tried for murder any more than a policeman should necessarily be charged with murder everytime he shoots someone - an investigation should be done to make sure he had just cause, but not necessarily a trial...
Hopefully, he doesn't believe that there should be immunity from prosecution for rape, whether the victim is American, Iraqi, Iranian...or for that matter, Martian...
"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."
Ronald Reagan
After reading it again, I see why someone would question my meaning. I absolutely meant I support giving contractors immunity in a war zone so they can carry out their mission.
I would never support raping anyone under any circumstances. I think rape is a despicable crime.
It really never occurred to me that the immunity would include potential criminal acts committed against a co-worker. It certainly never occurred to me that a crime of this magnitude would be committed against a fellow contractor either.
Obviously, we'll have to wait and see what comes of it. But I have serious doubts that anything will happen. Those guys have immunity pure and simple, and there's nothing that can be done about it.
Feed your brain at The Hot Joints
Jones, Et Al v. Halliburton Company et al
http://news.justia.com/cases/featured/texas/txedce/1:2007cv00295/103217/
From AoSHQ's comments section. I'm going to withhold judgment on the woman's story until I get some more information, but the more I read these documents the more I suspect that ABC News didn't.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
I think there should be a three-fifths immunity rule for Iraqi-Americans.
...and all of its advertisers are one more incident away from being asked why one of its at-large representatives is posting racist messages on our weblog.
Oh, I'm sorry: did you think that you could anonymously troll?
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
Nah, I didn't think that. I'm familiar with the penchant for discouraging dissent and discussion.
And your advertisers publish Ann Coulter. I don't really think they're worried about me.
But since clearly you think otherwise, I'll get booted again, and go to blogs and sites that engage in discussion and satire and humor and debate. Been fun, though.
We don't like people coming onto this site and trying to race-bait.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
No offense, but if you think that people who are given immunity from prosecution (i.e. power) are only going to use that power to commit crimes against others and not against their own, you're an effing idiot. People naturally take advantage of situations for their own gain. Obviously, the people who allegedly committed this criminal act knew who this woman was, but their desire to hurt her outweighed any kind of bond they may have had as freewheeling US contractors.
It would be interesting if the alleged victim decided to take justice into her own hands in this case...probably couldn't prosecute her either.
If you think "it can't happen to me" then it probably already has. All that's left is for you to exit the boxcar and walk into that shower with the rest of 'em. Thinking for yourself used to be valued in this country. You web blog id-jits and radio listening ditto-bots are destroying this society from the inside out.
- A True Conservative
...but have you go at once.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!
If a rape kit was administered, it was done by a medical professional of some sort. What is that person's name, and why did he or she not start screaming when a third party interfered in a felony investigation?
(Holding up hand) I didn't ask for speculations from people not involved. I want the medical professional to explain his or her actions.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.I've been usurped!