Kathryn Helvenston’s son was sent to a mission from which he never returned. Scott Helvenston was one of the four Americans working for Blackwater in Iraq. They were ambushed and killed late march 2004 in Fallujah, a volatile city in western Iraq. The entire world watched the brutal episode of an enraged mob dragging the burned bodies through the city and hanged at least two corpses from a bridge over the Euphrates River.“[Blackwater sent them out,” Helvenston said in a 75-minutes documentary, which was played in the International House of Pennsylvania University before an audience of 300. Iraq for Sale, the war profiteers is a documentary that depicts the lives of soldiers, truck drivers, widows and children that have been changed forever as a result of profiteering in the reconstruction of Iraq. It uncovers the connections between private corporations’ “bad” performance in Iraq and the decision makers who allow it all to happen
Hosted by the SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, the premier started with a reception and was followed by a panel in which the speakers were Robert Greenwald, producer and director of Iraq for Sale, Susan Burke, Human Rights Attorney, represents Abu Ghraib torture victims, Marwan Mawiri, a whistleblower and Former Titan translator in Iraq and Marie de Young, Halliburton Whistleblower who is running for state representative.
Accompanied by images of children playing, students going to schools, and U.S. soldiers fighting, the documentary starts with a transcript, “The film you are about to see could change the world. You have the power to change the world.” Pictures of Scott, Helvenston’s son followed. With tears raining on her cheeks, Helvenston’s son’s images backed up what she said. With his messy blond hair, Hollywood face and muscular build, Scott went to Iraq to work for Blackwater to earn money to support his children. Later, he became one of the victims.
Families of the four slain Americans filed charges against Blackwater setting responsibility of the incident on the private security firm.
“The vehicles should have been armored,” Katy said in a hint of accusation that Blackwater did not provide them with the appropriate plan and equipments. “And they also should have had saws, heavy belt fed machine guns in each vehicle, which they didn’t have. They also were supposed to have maps for their routes, they should have pre-planned their route which they weren’t given enough time [to do]”.
Blackwater did not talk about Falluja incident for a long time. However, eight days after the ambush, Patrick Toohey, a senior company executive told the New York Times that the company had already made changes in “Tactics, techniques and procedures.” Since the incident, Blackwater’s profits increased 600 fold.
“I am so angry that my son died but when I saw what Blackwater did,” Helvenston said. “I don’t know what to say,”
Across the hall and before the start of the movie, attendees expressed their disagreement to Bush’s Administrations plans. Standing next to the advertisement poster of the documentary at the reception, Michael Leone, an employee of the SEIU said the Bush Administration “has done a terrible job” in Iraq. For him, this administration has ignored “the majority of the [American] people” and concentrated on Bush’s friends. “They allowed companies like Halliburton which receives benefits from contracts with billions of dollars by the time hundreds of thousands of American laborers are ignored,” Leone said.
Halliburton, once fined with $1.5 million for violations in early 1990s, is one of the contracting companies mentioned in the documentary as a profiteer from the ongoing war in Iraq . Ben Carter, a KBR/Halliburton former water Purification Specialist, showed up on the screen to testify. Carter went to Iraq to support the troops and reconstruction efforts. Yet soon after he arrived in Iraq , he found KBR/Halliburton cutting essential corners. Carter eventually found the water being supplied to troops was severely contaminated. "I went over there and that's where my eyes were opened,” Carter said with tear drops falling. “Within the first day that I was in Iraq I started to see just incredible waste and compromised safety standards.”
On January 23rd of this year, Carter testified before the senate. In his testimony, Carter said although he was hired to work as a water treatment specialist, he was not allowed to inspect Al-Ramadi water delivery systems until “more than a month after I arrived at the base.” After testing the water used by the Marines, “the test results indicated zero presence of chlorine.”
“We have to take care of our troops and civilians,” said Marie deYoung, a former Army chaplain who is running for PA State representatives. “If the [administration] listened to senior army generals, they would have helped Iraqis and Americans twice. Instead, the strategy was based on only what Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cheney said,” she said. “Profits were taken on the expense of U.S. soldiers and Iraqis,” she added.
In 2003, deYoung was hired by her former commanders who worked as Halliburton executives to perform “executive officer” functions for military commanders in Kosovo, and later, to assist with contract management in Kuwait . Senior Halliburton executives moved Marie to the Kuwait Headquarters to assist with the clean-up of the Kuwait subcontracts department. While there, she uncovered specific acts of fraud that she reported to Halliburton management. When it became clear that Halliburton executives were not correcting the systemic pattern of overcharges, but were “closing out” accounts to avoid audit detection, she took her concerns to Congressman Henry Waxman’s office and later testified before Congress. “We are working to do changes in government to get a better policy,” she said.
Truck drivers, former U.S. soldiers and officers, and former employees testified against KBR/Halliburton’s performance and accused them of being profiteers on the expense of the U.S. troops fighting in Iraq .
Whenever the war in Iraq is mentioned, Abu Ghraib prison scandal arises. Investigators and former army officers testify in the documentary about how a U.S. contracting company employees took part in abusing Iraqi detainees in 2004. Janis Karpinsky, a former Brigadier General at Abu Ghraib began to put the pieces of the puzzle together when she saw the photographs. “I became aware of this, these CACI interrogators on the 23rd of January 2004 when I saw the photographs for the first time. And I said to the commander of the criminal investigation division, who was showing them to me, I said, ‘Why are the translators around the prisoners? Why are the translators in the cell block?’ And he said, ‘Ma'am, those aren't translators. Those are CACI interrogators.’ I said, ‘Translators?’ He said, ‘No, interrogators.’”
Along with the images of the abused Iraqi detainees, Hassan al-Azzawi, a torture victim at Abu Ghraib, said he was abused by men in civilian clothes. "There was a person wearing civilian clothes, and giving them orders. I think he belonged to the private companies,” Azzawi said in the documentary in a hint to CACI, the California Analysis Center. “Then they cuffed my hands again, and they ripped my clothes in a savage way, even my underwear, I stayed naked, totally naked," he added.
The real-life abuses at Abu Ghraib prison are played out for the first time in the world of cinema in a controversial Turkish movie called Valley of the Wolves Iraq. In the movie, there are episodes where U.S. contractors abuse and kill Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison facility. The Turkish movie caused a big debate here in the United States.
Since the war broke up in 2003, more than 2500 U.S. soldiers were killed in action in Iraq. The increasing number of the death toll resulted in different points of views among the American people. “I rejected this war form the beginning,” said Christine Coey, 52. “We don’t know the country, the people and the background of the people. That ignorance causes the death of our sons and daughters who are fighting [in Iraq],” said Coey who works in a food store. However, Christine Opes disagrees with Coey. “Although we are losing troops there, we have to win. War is always difficult,” said Opes who works as a first class cleaner.
Other attendees blamed President Bush for all the problems happening in the U.S. and Iraq . “[Bush] is the main cause of problems,” said Bernice Washington who came to watch the documentary. “He sent our troops for oil, not for freedom. He continues what his father started in the Gulf War in 1991.”
After screening the movie, anger over the subject sparkled among the audience. Some people left the theater furious at the security firm.
“Horrible,” said Rosetta Johnson, a dietary aide. “Halliburton should be brought to justice. They are taking advantage of our troops.”
baghdadtreasure@gmail.com
