June 2003: KBR, Saudi Firm Expose Thousands of US Soldiers to Hepatitis A

KBR procurement managers Stephen Seamans and Jeff Mazon, who have between them already executed logistics subcontracts for the US military in Iraq worth $321 million, put together yet another deal for their business crony Shabbir Khan, of the Saudi conglomerate Tamimi Global Co (see October 2005, October 2002, and April 2003). However, this deal puts US soldiers at risk. According to KBR’s enormous LOGCAP contract with the Army, KBR is required to medically screen the thousands of kitchen workers subcontractors such as Tamimi import from poor villages in countries like Nepal, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. Instead of performing the required medical screenings, Khan gives falsified files on 550 Tamimi kitchen workers to the US Defense Department. KBR retests those 550 workers at a Kuwait City clinic and finds that 172 test positive for exposure to the hepatitis A virus. Khan tries to suppress the test results, telling the clinic that Tamimi would do no more business with his clinic if it informs KBR about the results. Further retests show that none of the 172 have contagious hepatitis A, and Khan’s attorneys will claim during a subsequent investigation (see October 2006 and Beyond) that no soldiers caught any diseases from any of Tamimi’s workers. Other firms besides Tamimi show similar problems, causing KBR to begin vaccinating the employees for a variety of diseases at the job sites. [Chicago Tribune, 2/20/2008; Chicago Tribune, 2/21/2008]