McCollum: Take Iraq contract back from KBR

KBR provided everthing in Iraq, except warriors. They provided inferior and dangerous quarters for our troops and when called on it by US Army Corps of Engineer auditors, responded by saying it was the best they could do. When auditors refused pay requests, they were kicked “upstairs” and paid.
We had such an aversion to having a large standing military, we decided to do it on the cheap-hiring no bid KBR. In honesty, this wasn’t just a Bush/Cheney problem-well, except they went to war unprepared, it was cheaper and faster to privatize support functions. Oh, except when we go to war!. It is a real problem the military has to face and find an answer. The military is hardly ever efficient, but do we have to hire cronies to screw this up? Keep this in mind when we hear private sector works better. Maybe not in war.

KBR has done an outstanding job since the start of this conflict. The fact is there was no other company who could perform the required work. The private sector has never been called on to take on an entire war. KBR made mistakes but that is going to happen in a project as massive as this. In relation how many military personnel have died due to accidents since the start of the war? You do not hear those in the news but they occur everyday.

I invite you to get out of your easy chair and fly to the other side of the planet into the war zone then take a rhino ride to one of the camps and have lunch with our troops and the brave men and women who support them. A war is won on the bellies of the troops. KBR provides extraordinary quality meals to our troops 24 / 7 in the most remote, dangerous and difficult locations. They provide not only food but water and shelter and comfort to your young men and women. The men and women who do this dedicate their time 24 / 7 to providing these comforts to our troops. It is said they make a lot of money. They get paid a fair and average wage. They work many hours and generally have no days off. When they do have time off they are still under rules that were designed for military personnel. So they are never really off of work. They can not go home to their family or go out in the evening. When they are off they are not paid but still in servitude. So do the math. If you calculate all the time they are there, they are making minimum wage. Now let’s talk about what their effort does for our young men and women. During the Vietnam conflict it took 4 people to provide services, food, water, shelter and logistics to each single troop in the field. Today with KBR taking on these responsibilities it takes 1 support person per soldier. This allows the men and women to concentrate on the fight. This allows longer home time for the troops. This keeps marriages and families together. This takes stress off our troops and provides a stronger healthier army. Ask any service man what he thinks of KBR and 90% of the people you ask will tell you they could not imagine going into conflict with out them. You want our young people in these difficult situations to have water food shelter entertainment? They are not just our troops they are our sons and daughters. We all want them safe and healthy and happy especially in a stressful combat situation. There have been mistakes made but there has been a whole lot of good done. You should put that hatful restrict away and be a human being for a moment. We all want the best for our people. In this case the support that was chosen and provided was and is right on target.