How does a Republican Senator rationalize voting against legislation designed to protect rape victims? One would think that Republicans, as representatives of a party committed to “family values,†would be sympathetic to Jamie Leigh Jones, the young woman whose tragic gang-rape by her Halliburton coworkers in Baghdad spearheaded Senator Al Franken’s latest amendment. Evidently not, as S. Amdt. 2588, a measure designed to ensure that government contractors provide recourse for workplace sexual assault victims, went opposed by a shocking 30 Republican Senators. What gives here? To understand their motives, one only need look to Senator Jeff Sessions, who dismissed the amendment as “a political attack directed at Halliburton.†In other words, Sessions and his 29 partners-in-crime acquiesced to their corporate sponsor, and inevitably begged off. These rogue senators, sadly, aren’t the sole miscreants here. Halliburton/KBR’s history suggests an insidious relationship with government officials even predating its ties to Dick Cheney. Indeed, Halliburton/KBR’s stranglehold over our leadership stretches back to the 1940s, in then-Congressman Lyndon Baines Johnson. George and Herman Brown, founders of KBR's predecessor Brown & Root, saw a crucial ally in a young LBJ, with whom they began to cultivate what became an inseparable friendship prior to his departure to Washington. In exchange for B&R’s consistent financial backing, LBJ would manipulate his role as a Congressman – and later as President – to award the firm lucrative taxpayer-financed government service contracts. Come World War II, Brown and Root were firmly entrenched in the proper political channels, and had perfected the practice of methodically inflating contract fees – without so much as a slap on the wrist, thanks to their ties to LBJ. B&R continued to earn windfall profits during the Vietnam War, though multi-billion dollar contracts to build military bases in Vietnam. Despite complaints from the General Accounting Office that the firm was defrauding taxpayers using surreptitious account practices, Brown & Root’s connections to LBJ ensured the firm legal immunity. LBJ himself described the relationship as a “joint venture†in which “Wirtz [Brown & Root’s attorney] is going to take care of the legal part…I’m going to take care of the politics, and you’re going to take care of the business side of it … the three of us will come up with a solution that improves the status of all three of us.†And so it was. Brown & Root was ultimately acquired by Halliburton in 1962. B&R resurfaced in the 1991 Gulf War to survey the damage done to Kuwait’s infrastructure, and to assess the efficacy of military contractors operating in the region. Impressed with B&R’s assessment, then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney in 1992 steered the firm a five-year umbrella contract, termed LOGCAP, which transformed B&R from one of several regional contractors into the US military's de facto exclusive provider of global support services. Cheney left public service three years later to serve as B&R parent Halliburton’s CEO. B&R lost the LOGCAP contract in 1997, but in 2001, with (as of 2000) former Halliburton CEO Cheney as Vice President, B&R – now renamed KBR – was awarded LOGCAP for an additional ten-year term. Given Halliburton/KBR’s established history of co-opting public officials, it isn’t entirely surprising that 30 Senators would vote in its favor. Still, indifference to gang-rape is reprehensible even for Halliburton; the firm has crossed the line from corporate malfeasance to bona-fide violent crime. Halliburton’s undue influence on Congress must be contained. Keeping in mind that KBR/Halliburton has netted over $25 billion from taxpayer-financed service contracts since 2001, our elected leadership should have no compunction in holding the firm accountable to the letter of the law. That Halliburton's profit margins are so utterly dependent on work done on the US taxpayer's dime ought to encourage scrutiny rather than laxity of its questionable business practices. Needless to say, legal recourse for rape victims like Ms. Jones is the logical – and moral – next step. **Daanish Faruqi is an occasional contributor to Bikya Masr. BM
