Some US Soldiers Forced To Steal Water in Iraq

Reported tonight on KHOU.com, and backed up with a story at Daily Kos (links below):

... while many soldiers say they had good access to water and even Gatorade, the 11 News Defenders discovered that others, stationed all over the country and during all phases of this desert war, say something else was often missing.

“We were rationed two bottles of water a day,” said Army Staff Sgt. Dustin Robey, referring to 1 to 1.5 liter bottles. And he said that wasn’t nearly enough.

“You’ll see guys throw up, you’ll see them pass out,” he said.

The Army's own training manuals say that in desert environments your body can lose up to 4 gallons of internal liquids a day. How much were soldiers given? About 1/2 a gallon.

So what happens? Dehydration sickness, which includes fainting and vomiting. Forced to forage for water -- or steal it -- soldiers would sometimes drink untreated Iraqi water, causing intestinal sicknesses like dysentery.

And where was all the water that the soldiers should have been getting? On pallets at the Baghdad airport -- in the hands of civilian contractors. Guess who was in charge of water purification and supplies? Our old friends, KBR, who are either war profiteers or grossly incompetent.

Here's the story on Daily Kos: For Lack of Water, U.S. Troops in Iraq Vomiting, Fainting

And here's the source story on KHOU: 11 News Defenders Story

Comments

[David Bannister]

This TOTALLY peeved me.

And lets not even go into the Blackwater/Xe garbage.