BREAKING: KBR guilty - $85 million awarded to 12 Oregon soldiers

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Saturday November 03, 2012 · 3:35 AM PDT

2012/11/03 · 03:35

Mike Francis of the Oregonian, who has been covering the trial of 12 Oregon National Guard members suing KBR of knowingly exposing them in 2003 to a carcinogen at Qarmat Ali, reports.

In a potentially precedent-setting verdict, a Portland jury found defense contractor KBR Inc. was negligent, but did not commit fraud against a dozen Oregon Army National Guard soldiers who sued the company for its conduct in Iraq nine years ago.
Magistrate Judge Paul Papak announced the decision about 3:35 p.m. the U.S. Courthouse in Portland. Each soldier was awarded $850,000 in non-economic damages and $6.25 million in punitive damages.

Of course KBR will appeal, but at least the bastards lost the first round.

KBR's lead attorney, Geoffrey Harrison, said the company will appeal.
“We will appeal the jury’s verdict which bears no rational relationship to the evidence presented at trial,” he said. “We believe the trial court should have dismissed the case before trial.”

Well this didn't work out too well did it?

The cases stem from the chaotic aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The Army Corps of Engineers hired KBR Inc. to run a massive program called Restore Iraqi Oil. The program involved dozens of sites throughout Iraq -- sites that neither the Army nor KBR had visited before the invasion. The project was intended to quickly restore the flow of Iraq's oil, partly to fund the war. The Pentagon remembered the way Saddam Hussein had lit the fields on fire during the first Gulf War, and feared a repeat in 2003.

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BREAKING: KBR guilty - $85 million awarded to 12 Oregon soldiers

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