Excellent, but my question is what took you guys so long? This war has been cranking along for over 8 years now, and the government is finally tracking this stuff or caring? And what about tracking contractor deaths, or do you guys care about that? The machine of progress in government can be mind numbingly slow or even absent. I guess we should be thankful for whatever they can accomplish, but how long does it really take to apply some common sense policies? pffffft
The next step though, is to actually act on that information that you get. What will really impress me, is if the government gives the same attention, to third country nationals working for us, as they do to expats. When a Ugandan guard is raped, or some Filipina working at the DEFAC is assaulted, is the DoD going to care about that and hold companies accountable for how they handle those incidents? Or do we only care about U.S. contractors? I guess local nationals would fall under the laws of their country, but is there any responsibility to report that stuff too?
Who knows, and maybe we do track and care about all of these folks. It would be the least we could do for the service that all of these contractors have given to the war effort. –Matt
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Pentagon to track assault of contractor employees
By KIMBERLY HEFLINGFriday, February 12, 2010
WASHINGTON — The sexual assault of employees of U.S. military contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan will be tracked by the Pentagon under a system it is setting up.
The tracking will likely begin this year, Defense official Gail McGinn said in a memo to the Pentagon’s Inspector General included in a report released Friday.
The IG evaluation was initiated by a request from congressional members concerned that not enough protections were offered to U.S. contracting employees assaulted in the war zones. One of the most high profile cases was that of a Texas woman, J. L. Jones. Jones has sued Halliburton Co. and its former subsidiary KBR, saying she was gang raped while working for KBR in Iraq in 2005.
The IG also recommended the Pentagon develop plans to provide immediate help following assaults on contractor employees, which McGinn also said the Pentagon was developing plans to do.
The IG noted it found anecdotal evidence that contractors who reported being assaulted received medical and other assistance from military personnel.
It said from 2005 to 2007, the Military Criminal Investigative Organizations conducted 25 sexual assault investigations involving contractor personnel in the two war zones.
In about a third of those cases, contractor company officials reported the assault to DOD officials, but in the remaining cases the alleged victim notified law enforcement directly or the report came from someone else, the IG said.
In the Jones case, the companies said her contract required claims against them be settled through arbitration. In September, an appeals court ruled Jones’ claims can go to trial, and a trial date has been set in federal court in February 2011.
Story here.