Another Iraq Contractor Worker Claims Rape

Former KBR/Halliburton Employee Who Says She Was Raped Recounts Details Before Congress

(AP)  An Illinois woman who says she was raped while working for a contractor in Iraq recounted the experience in a congressional hearing Wednesday.

A woman who made similar allegations before Congress last year listened and fought back tears.

Dawn Leamon of Lena, Ill. said at a Senate subcommittee hearing she was sodomized and forced to have oral sex by a soldier and a co-worker after she drank a cocktail that made her feel strange.

She worked as a paramedic for Service Employees International Inc., a foreign subsidiary of KBR Inc., at Camp Harper near Basra, Iraq. Leamon said the base was frequently under rocket attacks.

The alleged attack occurred just two months after Jamie Leigh Jones, formerly of Conroe, Texas, told a House committee she was raped by KBR/Halliburton co-workers and held a day in a shipping container after reporting the 2005 assault.

The Associated Press does not usually identify people who say they were sexually assaulted, but the women have made their identities public.

Jones wiped away tears as Leamon and a third woman, Mary Beth Keniston, spoke. Keniston, of Olmsted Falls, Ohio, said she was assaulted in 2004 while working as a truck driver with her husband for KBR in Iraq.

"It bothers me that it happened again after I stood up and brought awareness to it and brought KBR to such scrutiny," Jones said during a break.

Jones sued Halliburton, whose former subsidiary is KBR, and is waiting for a judge to rule if it can go to trial or be settled in arbitration. KBR and Halliburton split last year.

Leamon, whose sons served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said employers discouraged her from reporting the rape and pressured her to sign an inaccurate statement with inaccurate details.

Several days after the assault she had to provide medical care to one of her attackers. She officially reported the rape after she was transferred to another camp on Feb. 27 because she feared for her safety.

"It is very easy for a person in that part of Iraq to disappear," Leamon said. "I could disappear in a heartbeat. I could fall. I could have a head injury and it could be explained (away)."

Since Jones' December testimony, some lawmakers have pressured the Bush administration to investigate sexual assault cases like hers and hold contractors more accountable.

Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, the subcommittee's chairman, said at least three laws give the Justice Department authority to prosecute such cases.

"We have an unprecedented number of contractors posted in war zones and if they are victimized by their colleagues or by soldiers, the concern of this committee is they end up in legal limbo," Nelson said.

Sigal Mandelker, a Justice Department deputy assistant attorney, told Nelson the agency takes sexual assault crimes very seriously and has a team of investigators and prosecutors in Iraq to handle them and other crimes.

The agency has between four and six active investigations including one into Leamon's, Mandelker said. But she said she didn't know of any convictions for sexual assault of a contract employee.

"It can be extremely difficult to investigate these cases. As you heard today it is an unfortunate fact that the crimes occur in a war zone and there are numerous difficulties of investigating a case when the conduct occurred in a war zone," Mandelker said.

KBR spokeswoman Heather Browne declined comment Wednesday. In a statement Tuesday, she said reports of sexual assault and harassment are taken seriously and thoroughly investigated.

[bobnjersey]

[Seriously though, I only think about 99 out of a hundred should be neutered. No more war. No more 1 out of 3 little boys being molested, no more 2 out of 3 little girls being molested. What a nice place Earth would be.]
[Posted by truth-hurts at 12:33 PM : Apr 10, 2008]

maybe the root cause of all of that is really the 99 of 100 of you that wont **** ... harping about one thing or another ... so maybe a muzzle for each of you would also do the trick.

[gunownerdan]

Halliburton sure does have a lot of experience with rape.

[heraldtkel]

Arabs are all the same www.theoandavirus.com

[stevex47]

marscaponi is right about the e mails. Destroying them is yet one more felony by this administration. The tie in to this story is they chatted about these rapes, the rape and murder of the 14 year old girl and her family. The US attorney firings, and the outting of Plame. All conspired, comitted treason, "prisoner" renditions, torture, etc. Then they tried to hide the evidence by destroying the e mails. NO PARDONS for anyone from this joke of an "administration". Oh, and they raped the american people of virtually everything we hold dear.

[sentry88]

mascarponi STAY ON POINT

[ov442]

KBR spokeswoman Heather Browne declined comment Wednesday - ......... I know... we can send her over to Iraq and have her serve in some job, and not let anyone over there know who she is and let her see how she is treated and then come back and tell congress what happened.
then she can tell us if KBR really does investigate anything or if there appears to be an unwritten policy to '' do as they please, and cover it up ''

[ov442]

Blackwater and KBR, just "do as the romans do" as the saying goes. They came to a country where women are devalued, are not someone''s sister, daughter, wife, mother, loved one, where women are not good people, are not worth anything, are not caring wonderful human beings that are intelligent, creative, clever, funny, senstive persons.
So these KBR/Blackwater scum are given every opportunity to treat women badly and harm them.
We need to have laws to stop that cold. It needs to end, and it needs to start new overseas. Laws to protect American citizens in every possible way from any crime by any person.

[luvwknd69]

Let%u2019s see%u2026.Halliburton is *** Cheney (regardless of what the media says)%u2026Dick is GWB & isn%u2019t their policy to use torture tactics? I%u2019d simply guess *** & George told the Halliburton boys to go ahead and help themselves and rape this lady because you do know%u2026.THEY ARE ABOVE THE LAW! (anyway they think they are)

George Sucks!
*** Sucks!
Halliburton Sucks!

The USA needs to get the HE11 out of Iraq NOW! The sooner the better! This war was and still is a MISTAKE!

[wdrussell1]

Well it was very dark. The mercenaries thought it was a young Iraqi boy.

Blackwater,KBR, providing rapists worldwide.

[truth-hurts]

Men are afraid that if we have a Women as President, she''ll have them all neutered. LOL!

Seriously though, I only think about 99 out of a hundred should be neutered. No more war. No more 1 out of 3 little boys being molested, no more 2 out of 3 little girls being molested. What a nice place Earth would be.

[andor3]

The experience and suffering of the contractors is a huge story. People mostly honor the soldiers, and the soldiers have systems and benefits to help deal with the stress and trauma. But if a contractor complains, he or she is put on a plane to home and fired.

[prinzowhales]

Here is a story about another woman murdered along with others on Flight 77, on 9-11. Her husband lied about her last moments...why would this high Bush official lie about phone calls?

Ted Olson lied about his phone calls from his wife from Flight 77 on 9-11! The FBI, in court documents in the Zacarias Moussaoui case, they say only ONE Unconnected Call was made by Ms. Olson.

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8514

[ranger1948]

SUMEREX AND JOYOUS88
YOU ARE BOTH SICK INDIVIDUALS. NO WOMN DESERVES TO BE RAPED. YOU NEEED TO THINK BEFORE YOU MAKE COMMENTS.

[rukindr]

I dont get it...are they saying that people should be travelling to Iraq with the expectation that they WONT be a victim of crime?
I would believe the opposite, entering into a war environment in a country with no stable government, rampant poverty, dispair, and LAWLESSNESS! Contractors in L.A. or NYC know better...why is this such a shock? Why does the Senate have to investigate it?

Posted by DaVicar2

Being killed by the enemy and raped by the same people on your side are two completely different things, I would think that much would be obvious but you apparently need it spelled out to you.

[tomanyt]

DaVicar2...Its never enough.

[tomanyt]

DaVicar2..."Why does the Senate have to investigate it?" Because they like to make you think they are doing something useful.

[ianlou]

Why is it that the words "Rape" and "Haliburton" seem to go hand in hand.

[jackknows]

Rape is rape and be sure there are many more being raped who are too afraid to come forward. Particularly Iraqi women and girls. Do no think these women are coming forward for anything but to reveal the truth and if there are scumbags over there under the idea they are examples of Americans and are raping, pillaging and doing whatever they *** well please, it is up to the american government to make extremely worldwide public examples of how we punish such scum.

[swwils]

Those KBR workers seem to think they are untouchable,because of the war,and the individual that used to be the CEO,and probably still is only in secret.I don''t care who you work for or who you are.Rape is rape,and should be prosecuted to the most extreme the law dictates.That should(to me)be punishable by death.

[tomanyt]

This lady is claiming she was raped twice?????? I''m not sure that I believe her. I can see being raped once, but twice...I would have to question her motives. Of course this article doesn''t give much detail so its hard to say what happened.