Two Ex-KBR Employees Say They Were Raped by Co-Workers in Iraq

AMY GOODMAN: Another female employee of the military contractor KBR has come forward with allegations of rape in Iraq. In an interview with The Nation magazine last week, a woman identified by the pseudonym Lisa Smith says two colleagues raped her at a southern Iraqi military base in January. Smith says a supervisor told her to “keep quiet” or face danger.

Last year, former KBR employee Jamie Leigh Jones sued KBR and its former parent company Halliburton after she says she was drugged and gang-raped by employees of the company in Baghdad. Jones recounted that after she was raped, the company put her in a shipping container without food or water for at least twenty-four hours. She was also warned that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.

Jones has said that thirty-eight other female contractors have privately come forward with their own stories of sexual harassment and abuse in Iraq and other countries. A criminal probe into Jones’s case has lasted more than two-and-a-half years. No charges have been filed.

Today, in their first joint interview, we speak to both of these women who have bravely come forward with their stories. Lisa Smith, as we’ll call her to protect her privacy, will be testifying publicly tomorrow—that’s Wednesday—before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in D.C. She joins us on the phone from Texas. Jamie Leigh Jones joins us on the line from San Diego. She is the founder and director of the Jamie Leigh Foundation, which assists US citizens victimized by government contractors or other corporations while working abroad. She has testified twice before Congress and spoken out in the media about her case.

I’m also joined on the line by their attorneys: for Lisa Smith, Dan Ross; for Jamie Leigh Jones, Todd Kelly. And joining us from Baltimore is Karen Houppert. She broke the story of Lisa Smith’s rape allegations for The Nation magazine. The article is called “Another KBR Rape Case,” posted at thenation.com. Karen’s latest book is Home Fires Burning: Married to the Military for Better or Worse.

We welcome you all to Democracy Now! I want to begin with Jamie Leigh Jones. Tell us—

JAMIE LEIGH JONES: Hi.

AMY GOODMAN: —for those who haven’t heard your story—hi, Jamie—when you were in Iraq and what happened.

JAMIE LEIGH JONES: Well, I went to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and I worked for Halliburton, KBR, and I went there as an IT tech. And on the fourth day in Iraq, I was socializing with some fellow American contractors and was handed a drink—I was offered a drink, and I took two sips from the drink and don’t remember anything after that. I woke up to my body brutally raped and beaten, and the injuries I sustained were so severe which required me to have a reconstructive surgery on my chest.

I then, later on, I decided to start the Jamie Leigh Foundation because not only could I not pursue my case against my assailants criminally, I failed to be able to pursue a case civilly because of the arbitration provisions in my employee contract. So I decided to start the Jamie Leigh Foundation to make sure that other victims have an avenue for justice so that I could stand up in front of Congress and try and get some laws changed to protect these women that are also coming forward. But currently, right now, there’s actually forty women who have sought help through this foundation.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, we’re also joined by a woman we’ll call Lisa Smith. Jamie Leigh Jones has been going through this for several years now, first what happened to her, Iraq, and then how she is trying to get redress, to get justice. Lisa, first tell us why you don’t want to use your real name, and then tell us what happened to you and when it happened.

LISA SMITH: Good morning.

AMY GOODMAN: Hi.

LISA SMITH: The main reason, at this point, why I do not want to use my real name is that hopefully there will be some charges pressed in my case. It’s currently still under investigation both by the military and the government. So I’m trying to keep some sense of confidentiality.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us what happened. When did you go to Iraq?

LISA SMITH: I went to Iraq in July of 2007. I’m a KB—I believe a KBR employee, also through Service International, or Service Employees International. We’re having some issues as far as the clarity of whose employee I’m actually having. I have a similar issue as Jamie Leigh does as far as our contract: it’s not clear who we actually work for. And again, we also have an arbitration clause in our contract through Service Employees International; however, I always was under the understanding that I was a KBR employee.

AMY GOODMAN: So it’s only now when you’re involved with the legal system that you’re learning you may have been employed by another company somehow connected to KBR.

LISA SMITH: Correct. They are somehow connected. We’re just not real clear on the connection at this point. And, however, KBR is standing by the arbitration clause that Service Employees International has on the contract that we signed.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us what happened in Iraq.

LISA SMITH: I was a paramedic for Iraq in a southern part of Iraq and had been only at that particular site for—I’m sorry, I needed to stop our car. I was only at that site for approximately ten days, and again, I was socializing with the military, as well as other KBR employees. And we had a drink, and shortly after consuming part of that drink, I have very little memories of any activity after that. I also woke up in another location and had been assaulted. There was blood and feces in the room, and there was a military personnel in the room. And the camp management, from what I found out through the investigation and what the investigators have told me, the camp management actually was in the room during the assault several times.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you know this?

LISA SMITH: I learned this through the CID’s investigation, the military [inaudible]—

AMY GOODMAN: CID is the military investigation.

LISA SMITH: Right. The investigation did not begin until almost five weeks after the assault, and the investigation was initiated after I reported it. The camp evidently had—the management of the camp had already been under suspicion for other allegations, which is a large concern of mine, because we were not—when I was sent there, I was not aware that there was an ongoing issue at that camp.

AMY GOODMAN: Which camp was it?

LISA SMITH: I do not want to release that information at this time. There are several other innocent people there that could be affected by it.

AMY GOODMAN: And when you were there, did you report to your higher-ups? How did you deal that morning as you came to and realized what was happening?

LISA SMITH: I was physically ill from having feces being placed in my mouth. I had no other option other than to work that day. I was the only medical provider for that site. So I did work. I did have some rectal bleeding for about four days after that. And I had a discussion with camp management, as well as with the military, and was informed at that time that I was not to say a word. Until I left that particular camp, I did not say a word.

Once I was returned to another camp that was larger, that had more people available, as far as human resources and employee relations and the employee assistance program, that is when I chose to report the incident and felt that I was in a safer environment to do so.

The environment that I was in had very limited resources. There was no employee relations there until they came down to start this investigation of other issues in the camp. There was no human resources on a regular basis. There was no employee assistance on any type of basis there, other than traveling through to go to a different other site. So I had no options as far as who I could report it to, nor did we have military police there or American military established. There was a small group of American military there, but that was it.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, you worked, you believe, for KBR at the time. Did you, as a medic, have to treat one of your assailants?

LISA SMITH: Yes, I had.

AMY GOODMAN: What happened? What was that situation?

LISA SMITH: I had to treat him after an occupational injury.

AMY GOODMAN: How did you do that?

LISA SMITH: Again, I’m the only—he had a foot injury. I am the only medical provider down there. It wouldn’t matter who came in and was injured; I would have to—I have an obligation to treat.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to break and come back. We’re talking to Lisa Smith—that’s a pseudonym—a woman who is telling her story about working for KBR, she believed, in Iraq. Jamie Leigh Jones, also with us, who is well known for speaking out about what happened to her in Iraq. And we’re also, when we come back, going to talk to the author of The Nation piece who exposed Lisa’s story. Lisa will be revealing her identity when she testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee tomorrow in Congress. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. We’ll be back in a minute.