The Navy has hired Houston-based Halliburton Co. to restore electric power, repair roofs and remove debris at three naval facilities in Mississippi damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Halliburton subsidiary KBR will also perform damage assessments at other naval installations in New Orleans as soon as it is safe to do so. KBR was assigned the work under a “construction capabilities” contract awarded in 2004 after a competitive bidding process. The company is not involved in the Army Corps of Engineers’ effort to repair New Orleans’ levees. (Houston Chronicle, Sept. 1)
See our last post on Katrina’s aftermath, and on Halliburton.
Autopsy of the Katrina Catastrophe
The American people have still sheepishly failed to demand a full accounting of the debacle in New Orleans. Reports of looting, rioting, murder, and rape, are now known to either be false, or exagerated. The police of Gretna, LA, who blocked the only land route out of New Orleans, and fed by rumors of anarchy in New orleans, fired warning shots to prevent women and children from seeking safety, or finding food and water. Worse still, are the reports of police officers gunning down “armed gangs,” who were allegedly firing at contractors, killing five or six of them. Who were these victims, and what were the real circumstances of their deaths?