June 28, 2004: It's been reported, by several sources, that Specialist Maupin was executed by his captors today; just hours after the U.S. handed the country back to the Iraqi's. It is being reported that he was shot once in the back of the head and than once in the back.
God bless Keith, his family, and our troops. May he rest in peace.
Name: Keith "Matt" Maupin
Branch/Rank: U.S. Army Reserves / Specialist
(Promoted in absentia on 1 May 2003)
Unit: Army Reserves 724th Transportation Company, Bartonville, Ill
Date of Birth/Age: 20
Home City of Record: Batavia, OH
Date of Loss: April 9, 2004
Country of Loss: Iraq
Original Status: Duty Status Where-A-Bouts Unknown
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: Ground
Other Personnel in Incident: Six other Kellogg, Brown & Root employees; Thomas Hamill (escaped 5/2/04); Sgt. Elmer C. Krause (remains recovered 4/23/04)
Synopsis: The U.S. military said two American soldiers and seven employees of U.S. contractor Kellogg, Brown & Root were missing after their convoy was ambushed Friday, April 9, near Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad.
Only one, Thomas Hamill, a 43-year-old truck driver from Macon, Miss., was previously known to have been abducted. His captors have threatened to kill and mutilate him unless U.S. troops ended their assault on the city of Fallujah. The deadline passed Sunday with no word on his fate.
New videotape aired on Friday on Al-Jazeera which broadcast a video which showed a young man wearing camouflage and a floppy desert hat. He was sitting on the floor. He was surrounded by five gunmen, their faces covered by scarves. The U.S. Army soldier identified himself as "Pfc. Keith Matthew Maupin."Maupin joined the Army Reserves to help pay for college. His mother, Carolyn, headed a local support group for military moms. A brother had just completed his Marine basic training.
I am married with a 10-month-old child,” said the man, who frequently looked down, as if reading words on a piece of paper. “I came to liberate Iraq, but I did not come willingly because I wanted to stay with my child.”
Hmm, and who is Kellogg Brown and Root?
Kellogg Brown and Root
Kellogg Brown and Root, also known as KBR Engineering & Construction, is a unit of the Halliburton Company which provides military support services.
- Formerly known as Brown and Root Services, KBR was scrutinized in 2000 by the GAO for overcharging and providing unnecessary services in the Balkans.
- Balkans Support Contract is the largest contract for services to U. S. forces, representing about $2 billion in contract costs spent in the Balkans since December 1995.[1]
Brown & Root's open-ended logistics contracts from the Army and Navy --indeed much of the military privatization campaign -- are grounded in a 1992 study the company did for the Defense Department that several analysts said formed the template for privatization of logistics for a downsized U.S. military. Soon after the company delivered the classified study, which reportedly concluded that the Pentagon could save hundreds of billions of dollars by outsourcing, Brown & Root won its first competitively bid logistics contract.
Vice President Dick Cheney was defense secretary when the first Brown & Root study was done, and he became chief executive of its parent company, Halliburton, when he retired.
Source: Los Angeles Times; January 24, 2003 Pg. 1;"Privatized Army In Harm's Way" By Mark Fineman, Times Staff Writer
Contracts
- The Army has hired Kellogg, Brown and Root to provide housing accommodations for approximately 100,000 soldiers in Iraq ($200M) through a long-term contract of December 2001 called the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP).
- Brown and Root won the first five-year LOGCAP contract in 1992, but lost the second to rival DynCorp in 1997 after the GAO criticized the Army for not adequately controlling contracting costs in Bosnia. [2]
- Other LOGCAP orders have included pre-invasion order to repair oil facilities in Iraq; $28.2 million to build enemyprisoner-of-war camps; and $40.8 million to accommodate the Iraqi Survey Group, which was deployed this spring to find hidden weapons of mass destruction.
- Los Alamos National Laboratory announced Aug. 9, 2002, the award of a site services support contract to a team led by Kellog Brown and Root, Inc. The laboratory's largest contract, LANL reported the 5-year deal to be worth $700M.
- KBR wins new Iraq contract ... a new US army contract to help repair Iraq's dilapidated oil industry, BBC/UK, January 16, 2004: "Parsons Iraqi Joint Venture and Worley Group also will share in the $2bn (£1.1bn; 1.6bn euros) worth of work. ... KBR will develop Iraq's southern oil fields, while Parsons and Worley will work together in the north of the country."
External Resources
- "Outsourcing War; An inside look at Brown & Root, the kingpin of America's new military-industrial complex", Business Week Online, 15 September 2003 (also at ICH).
http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Kellogg_Brown_and_Root