# "Redneck Mafia" in Iraq? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 31, 2005, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/redneck-mafia-in-iraq/297086 "2005-03-31T17:37:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2005, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/redneck-mafia-in-iraq/297086/1 "2005-03-31T17:37:06Z")
According to a story broadcast on the left-wing radio show Democracy Now! on 3/30/05, some of the Iraq field operations of Halliburton subsidiary Kellog, Brown and Root are dominated by a brutal and racist “Redneck Mafia” – a group of employees recruited from the area of Leesville, Louisiana – which recently gang-beat a Latino employee, Ronald Lee Chavez – [http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/30/1544247](http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/30/1544247). Chavez is now in intensive care in a military hospital at Camp Anaconda. His father is complaining to the Justice Department. Chavez’ only offenses (according to his father) were to complain about insufficient security at the airport and agitate to move his company’s Baghdad operations into the U.S.-military-controlled zone for safety reasons. (He also complained about the Iraqi government taking money from the U.S. for airport security and then not giving it to the security contractor, Globe Security. “The money is probably in a Swiss account somewhere. These people are the most corrupt bunch I’ve ever seen. Everyone is on the take.”) KBR will make no comment other than that it is “investigating the situation”; three KBR employees have been sent back to the U.S. (with no criminal charges filed against them). I think this is worthy of debate because it’s apparently not an isolated incident. Iraq is a place where the new government is corrupt and ineffectual, and the American corporations supposedly rebuilding the country (partly at the American taxpayers’ expense) are equally corrupt and seem to think (correctly) that they can do whatever the fuck they want without being held accountable. From a rush transcript of the broadcast, statement by Pratap Chatterjee of [Corpwatch.org](http://Corpwatch.org) ([http://www.corpwatch.org/](http://www.corpwatch.org/)): > [@](#): > > PRATAP CHATTERJEE: Well, I’m not familiar with specifically where that particular group of people is. And you have to understand, there are anywhere between 24,000 and 40,000 employees of Halliburton in Iraq, and many of the locations are different. There is a company – another company that was employed and we talked about them actually about a month ago on Democracy Now! called Custer Battles that’s been charged with security of the airport. And, you know, again, the moment you step outside that airport, that highway to Baghdad is extremely dangerous, so the situation differs based on specifically where you are and who you are. So, for example, we’ve gotten a lot of reports that some of the – especially, you know, the third country nationals, you know, people from India, the Philippines, et cetera, are placed right at the perimeter because their lives are more expendable, and so, you know, when mortars come in to camp and mortars do come in to both the airport as well as Camp Anaconda – incidentally, this is the same two locations that the truck drivers were driving from. They were driving from Camp Anaconda to the Baghdad International Airport, so there are certainly locations within each of these that are more vulnerable to attack, even if it’s highly secured. I mean, where I stayed in Baghdad, we would see mortars land here 100 yards away. So unless they cover them with a glass dome, it’s pretty much impossible – but what I would like to actually say is there’s a pattern here of (a)Halliburton and other contractors not being in control of their employees. So who knows? Maybe the orders came on from above. I don’t know that, but what we do know – and he has – Mr. Chavez has been beaten. **I know of at least one Halliburton employee, one Custer Battles employee and one Dynecorp employee who had been threatened, that if they went to the press or blew the whistle, they would be beaten up or killed, and of course, they, in fact, three men have been killed after they’ve talked about – not working for Halliburton, working for a company called Ultra Service – have disappeared or been killed after they have tried to blow the whistle.** So there’s this climate of fear, and also the climate of managers doing whatever they want, and as I mentioned a little earlier in the show on this other story, we have managers sitting, Halliburton managers sitting in Kuwait taking million dollar bribes and, in fact, one was indicted in Georgia ten days ago for taking a million dollar bribe. This is a senior guy from Halliburton who was signing contracts for fuel supply to a base in Kuwait. And he’s not the only one being investigated. There is – the senior managers on the take, at least some of them are. They’re turning a blind eye to what’s happening below. They have no control of either the fraud or the traps that are being lobbed at them probably from within, from other fellow Americans, as well as from the resistance in Iraq. The situation is further complicated by uncertainty over what government, if any, has jurisdiction over these matters, and who has standing to prosecute or to sue. (We discussed this in a recent thread about Custer Battles, a reconstruction contractor that’s being sued for massive fraud, and which is raising the defense that the Coalition Provisional Authority, which it allegedly defrauded, was not an agency of the U.S. government and, in fact, never had any legal existence – [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=304863.)](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=304863.)) Of course, we can’t expect the Iraqi government to do anything about a situation from which some of its members are, apparently, personally profiting. And, of course, we can’t expect the Bush Administration to do anything about a situation from which some of its friends and supporters are personally profiting. What can we do about this? :mad: ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2005, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/redneck-mafia-in-iraq/297086/2 "2005-03-31T17:54:53Z")
Sorry, the thread title should, of course, read “Redneck Mafia,” not “Reneck Mafia.” :o Mods, could you please correct that? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2005, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/redneck-mafia-in-iraq/297086/3 "2005-03-31T19:11:37Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What can we do about this? :mad: Aside from drawing more attention to the matter and making a ruckus to demand a full investigation and prosecution (if necessary), I’m not sure what we ordinary folks _can_ do about this. And given the total lack of progress regarding something as alarming as the Valerie Plame leak, I doubt we’ll be seeing any satisfactory resolution to this mess any time soon. ---
**Author:** ![Unregistered\_Bull](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3da27b/32.png) [@Unregistered\_Bull](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unregistered_Bull)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2005, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/redneck-mafia-in-iraq/297086/4 "2005-03-31T21:50:49Z")
Cool! I’ve got a Mafia now. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/redneck-mafia-in-iraq/297086/5 "2005-04-01T18:18:08Z")
> [@Machetero](#): > > Cool! I’ve got a Mafia now. 😃 [jeff foxworthy] If you have ever fixed the outcome of a tractor pull, you might be in the Redneck Mafia! 🙂 [/jf] ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2005, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/redneck-mafia-in-iraq/297086/6 "2005-04-03T19:39:22Z")
Here’s something I didn’t know: Ronald Lee Chavez’ father, Eli Chavez, was the Democratic candidate for Congress for New Mexico’s 1st District in 2004. [[UPDATE] Halliburton Employee Gang-Beaten by Baghdad Co-Workers](http://cgilbert01.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/30/194332/013) Did the KBR workers who beat up Ronald Lee know that, I wonder? Eli is also a veteran of the 82nd Airborne, former DEA special agent, and former CIA agent decorated for his work in the Philippines and Laos. [LP: Exclusive: Halliburton Employee Says He Was Gang-Beaten By Co-Workers at Baghdad Airport](http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=90194) Not a guy you’d want to piss off. 😉