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For Immediate Release
September 15, 2006
Contact: Jesse Derris, Ken Sunshine Consultants – (212) 691-2800
Filmmaker Robert Greenwald and a number of former KBR-Halliburton employees will hold a press conference at 11:00 AM on Monday, September 18, to discuss Greenwald’s new film, Iraq for Sale – The War Profiteers. The film turns the spotlight on unchecked wasteful spending in Iraq and the urgent need for congressional oversight. The film highlights how unaccountable contracting in Iraq not only injures taxpayers but injures and even kills contractor employees in Iraq.
The press conference will take place in Room SD-124, in the Dirksen Senate Office Building at the U.S. Senate in Washington, DC.
U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Chairman of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) will join Greenwald at the press conference. Dorgan has chaired nearly a dozen oversight hearings by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, virtually the only committee in Congress doing meaningful oversight of Iraq contracting. The DPC hearings have uncovered and spotlighted billions of dollars in waste, fraud and abuse.
Greenwald’s new film Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, shows vividly the need for congressional oversight of Iraq contracting. It details war profiteering by focusing on American companies like Blackwater USA, CACI, KBR (Halliburton) and Titan (L-3 Communications). The film explores how out of control no-bid contracts in the Iraq reconstruction effort have led to unprecedented levels of waste and mismanagement by private corporations, outsourced military jobs to higher paid private workers, and wasting precious Defense appropriations.
The film also tells the horror story from Iraq known as the “Good Friday Massacre” in which a KBR/Halliburton truck convoy was ambushed on April 9, 2004 near Abu Ghraib prison. The convoy of unarmed contractors was knowingly sent into the hot combat zone by company leaders. Six truck drivers and two soldiers were killed and others were injured. Two of the surviving drivers will testify at a Senate DPC Oversight hearing Dorgan will chair later Monday afternoon.
Information about the press conference follows:
WHO: Film-maker Robert Greenwald, U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan, former KBR-Halliburton employees
WHAT: Press Conference
WHEN: 11:00 AM, Monday, September 18, 2006
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