Re: Seven Civilians Missing in Iraq

Date: April 13, 2004

"Seven U.S. Contractors Missing in Iraq

Reuters

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - Seven civilian contractors working for a subsidiary of Halliburton are missing in Iraq after an ambush on a convoy last week, the Texas-based firm and the U.S. military said on Monday.

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, told Pentagon reporters in video conference from Baghdad the contractors were working for Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of the U.S. oil services firm run until 2000 by Vice President Dick Cheney.

The contractors vanished after an attack on a U.S. convoy in Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad. Two U.S. soldiers also disappeared in the incident.

A Reuters photographer saw the aftermath of an attack on a convoy carrying fuel in Abu Ghraib on Friday. He saw at least nine dead bodies, many badly burned.

One of those missing, an American man being held hostage, is believed to have been taken captive after the same attack. Thomas Hamill, whose pictures have been aired on various television networks, was reported as saying he was the only survivor of the ambush.

Halliburton said the attack on a transportation convoy came during a "routine mission" last week for a logistics contract it holds with the U.S. Army. At any time KBR had more than 700 trucks on Kuwaiti and Iraqi roads, the firm said.

Halliburton said in a statement that Hamill was in their prayers and the company hoped he would soon be returned safely to his family.

"In these agonizing moments, the company is doing everything possible to assist the family as well as our employees who must summon all of their patience and hopefulness in this difficult period," Halliburton said.

Hamill, a struggling dairy farmer from Macon, Mississippi, went to work for KBR last year in Iraq in a bid to pay his family's bills back home.

Macon Mayor Dorothy Baker Hines described Hamill as a "quiet man, a good daddy and a good husband," who was trying to look out for his two children and wife, who recently had major heart surgery.

"Everyone was afraid for him to go but he felt like it was the best thing for him and his family," Hines told ABC.

Halliburton said the company's thoughts were also with six other missing KBR colleagues and the personnel assisting with the search and rescue effort.

"This is one of those pivotal moments when we hope all those in Iraq -- soldiers, civilian workers and the Iraqi people -- feel the power and spirit of a united America," said the statement.

An unknown number of foreign hostages are being held captive in Iraq, where U.S. troops are battling Sunni and Shi'ite insurgents in towns across the center and south of the country.

KBR is the largest contractor in Iraq, holding contracts that could eventually be worth $19 billion. About 30 of the company's staff and its subcontractors have been killed while doing work in Kuwait and Iraq.

©2004 Reuters
©1996-2004 The Washington Post Company"

NAD

"7 Halliburton workers missing

Contractors apparently captured after attack
By MICHAEL HEDGES

WASHINGTON -- Seven workers for Houston-based Halliburton KBR were missing after an attack on a fuel convoy in Iraq, U.S. military leaders said Monday, and the Pentagon guarded information about their fate in hopes of increasing the chance they will be found alive.

Iraqi insurgents apparently took the workers hostage Friday, along with two U.S. soldiers.

"One should be cautious; we don't want to jeopardize the ability to get anyone back," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. "You have to take any value away from them as hostages. That is why we don't talk about hostages."

A convoy with KBR employees and military escorts was attacked near Abu Ghraib, a town west of Baghdad notorious as the site of one of Saddam Hussein's largest concentration camps, where thousands of mass graves have been discovered.

A KBR worker and a U.S. soldier reportedly were killed in the attack.

During the weekend, KBR driver Thomas Hamill, 43, of Macon, Miss., was shown on videotape by Iraqi captors. The Iraqis threatened to kill him Sunday unless U.S. troops ended an assault on the city of Fallujah. The deadline set by the captors came and went with no further word on his fate.

During a teleconference from Baghdad Monday, Gen. John Abizaid, commander of Central Command, and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of the coalition task force in Iraq, acknowledged the attack on the convoy but offered no new information about the missing personnel.

Late Monday, the Department of Defense said that Sgt. Elmer C. Krause, 40, of Greensboro, N.C., and Pfc. Keith M. Maupin, 20, of Batavia, Ohio, are unaccounted for and listed as "whereabouts unknown."

The military referred questions about the civilian workers to Halliburton KBR, which would not make their names public.

Hamill went to Iraq, where civilians are used to support operations that began with the invasion of Iraq a year ago, in response to inducements from KBR. Drivers hired to help the company fulfill multibillion-dollar contracts to support the U.S. military and reconstruct the Iraqi oil infrastructure can earn about $80,000 a year.

Aside from Hamill, seen in the videotape released through the Arab news service Al-Jazeera, the U.S. has no solid information about either the missing KBR employees or the missing soldiers, the Pentagon official said. There has been no contact from anyone claiming to have them in custody making demands or describing their condition, he said.

"This is one of those pivotal moments when we hope all those in Iraq soldiers, civilian workers and the Iraqi people feel the power and spirit of a united America," Halliburton KBR said on its Web site Monday. "Our thoughts remain with our ... missing colleagues and the personnel assisting with the search and rescue effort and we remain hopeful for our other co-workers' safe return. We are grateful and supportive of everyone that continues to assist with this effort."

The company, which employs or subcontracts with more than 24,000 people in and near Iraq, said 30 of those personnel have been killed as they carried out the work of supplying food, fuel and equipment to the troops. Halliburton KBR said it has 700 trucks on Iraqi and Kuwaiti roads with drivers covering 3.3 million miles a month.

"Our work is difficult and in a dangerous environment and we are angered and deeply saddened by this situation. Halliburton and its subcontractors have lost 30 personnel while performing services under our contracts in the Kuwait-Iraq region," the company said.

U.S. officials estimate that payments to Halliburton KBR could reach $18 billion. Vice President Dick Cheney was Halliburton's chief from 1995 to 2000.

The Iraqi forces opposing the U.S. apparently have focused on attacking, and in some cases temporarily cutting, vulnerable supply lines that run hundreds of miles from Kuwait and Jordan to U.S. troops inside Iraq. On Monday, at least two supply trucks were destroyed by Iraqi fire, one west of Baghdad on the artery connecting the city to outposts in the Sunni Triangle and the other to the southwest of the city on a route from Kuwait.

Along with the Americans, several others from nations supporting the U.S.-led coalition have been taken hostage in Iraq in recent days, including three Japanese who were threatened with being burned to death unless Japan agreed to withdraw its force of several hundred soldiers now in Iraq.

The hostages included two aid workers and a photojournalist. They were being held by a group calling itself the "Mujahedeen Brigades," which had not surfaced before.

Early today, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that eight employees of a Russian company have been kidnapped, the Interfax news agency reported. The report, citing ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko, came hours after the Arab television channel al-Jazeera reported that 11 Russians had been seized during a clash in Baghdad.

Three prominent Czech journalists have disappeared in Iraq, and at least two of them are believed to have been kidnapped. Czech Television lost contact with reporter Michal Kubal and cameraman Petr Klima on Monday morning. Spokesman Martin Krafll said there were unconfirmed reports that the two were kidnapped as they were traveling from Baghdad to Amman, Jordan. Reporter Vit Pohanka of Czech Radio has been missing since Sunday.

Seven Chinese briefly taken hostage were released Monday.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a spokesman for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, told reporters in Baghdad.

"It is not business as usual. We must acknowledge that ... but the situation is dramatically different today than it was as recently as five days ago.

"We are restoring a tremendous amount of order to this country. We still have some time before it gets to where it was as recently as three weeks ago ... but to characterize it as chaos is an overstatement."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

©2004 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau"