How The Bush Administration Supported The Troops

If you look around, you can still see some of those colorful "Support Our Troops" magnets that some put on their cars.

Too bad the Bush Administration didn't support the troops like they expected the rest of us to.

Case in point: Water.

The CBS reported:

Stories of short supplies for American forces in Iraq, such as inadequate body armor or unshielded Hummers, have been around since the war began. CBS affiliate KHOU-TV in Houston has discovered that some soldiers were forced to ration water, perhaps as little as 2-3 liters per day, because there was never enough.

According to the report, the Army recommended 15 liters of water per day could be lost in the desert heat and these guys got as little as 2, maybe three liters.

Good thing was that it wasn't widespread:

While many soldiers have said they had adequate access to water, and even Gatorade, KHOU found that the differing experiences seemed to have a great deal to do with when and where a soldier was deployed in Iraq, and their assignment.

Here's KHOU's report.

So early in the war, some of the boots on the ground had some harsh choices:

Army Staff Sgt. Dustin Robey told KHOU correspondent Jeremy Rogalski that soldiers would throw up or pass out from dehydration.

Chronic dehydration can lead to such problems as kidney stones, urinary infection, rectal afflictions and skin problems, and can have long-term health problems, including kidney injury.

Robey said in 2003 his company would run out of water on missions, forcing them to improvise, like drinking water from whatever taps they found.

Unfortunately, the often-untreated Iraqi water can cause intestinal illnesses. Robey said 50 to 60 members of his company got dysentery.

Hmm...dysentery or dehydration.

Any idea who was in charge of water over there in Bush's war? That's right:

The water was supposed to be processed by Houston-based company KBR.

Ah...the one-time Halliburton subsidiary, KBR. The same KBR responsible for all the dirty water and bad electrical work.

But:

KBR told KHOU that a Department of Defense Inspector General's report has concluded "KBR has (since) satisfied applicable water standards," adding that "the DoD has not found any illness which it attributes to water in Iraq."

Looks like they've fixed things. Tell that to Robey:

He says he's passed hundreds of kidney stones since returning form Iraq, and because of his condition the Army forced him to retire. His family is now facing foreclosure.

Another great moment for the Bush legacy.

Bad Water, KBR and the Troops

I know, I know.

Why can't I talk about any of the good stuff that KBR has done and continues to do in Iraq?

Why only point to the news about the:

Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says.

A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.

The Defense Department's inspector general's report, which could be released as early as Monday, found water quality problems between March 2004 and February 2006 at three sites run by contractor KBR Inc., and between January 2004 and December 2006 at two military-operated locations.

It was impossible to link the dirty water definitively to all the illnesses, according to the report. But it said KBR's water quality "was not maintained in accordance with field water sanitary standards" and the military-run sites "were not performing all required quality control tests."

I am sure there were many many times when KBR didn't poison the troops with dirty water, many many troops who didn't experience problems because of KBR's dirty water, and many many required quality control tests that KBR didn't fail to perform on the dirty water they supplied.

I'm just being unfair, I know.

Saddam was a bad man. His regime was vicious and he killed alot of people. So complaining about how KBR didn't adequately supply our troops with clean water is just plain unfair.

Unfair.