Two More Women Tell Congress About Rape in Iraq

April 9, 2008 — -- Two women told a Senate subcommittee today they were raped, assaulted and harassed while working in Iraq for the U.S.-based contractor KBR — though no criminal charges have been brought in either case.

The testimony was explicit, graphic in detail and emotional. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., elicited their stories with gentle questions.

Mary Beth Kineston told the committee she was raped by a fellow KBR employee, a Turkish national, in the cab of her truck at the dark Tigris river pumping station where she had to fill her truck by flashlight.

"He pinned me down. I tried to fight so hard I hit the side of my arm so hard that it was black and blue for days," said Kineston. "He pulled off my shorts. He raped me."

She said that her screams for help went unheeded by the pump operator nearby "who did not care to know what was going on."

She added that no one responded to her cries for help over the radio issued for her personal safety.

"I'm yelling and screaming on the radio over and over again for my supervisors or somebody to answer," she said, "and nobody would answer the radio."

When she returned to the base camp she said her supervisors were not in any rush to help.

She said that when she tried to report the rape to the U.S. Army JAG corps officer on the base, she was told that JAG does not support civilians on the base.

A few months later, while riding in a car with fellow KBR employees, Kineston said one of the men thought it to "be funny to put his hand in my pants. The moment he did it, I jumped out of the truck while it was still moving."

Kineston was not shy about reporting harassment. But KBR, a Halliburton subsidiary, started to find fault with her and, according to Kineston, terminated her "for ludicrous reasons ... speeding and passing a truck on base."

Kineston, a married mother of three, had gone to Iraq in 2004 with her truck driver husband to earn money for retirement and her daughter's wedding. She filed a civil suit against the company, which she was forced to arbitrate behind closed doors rather than in an open court with a jury. She won the arbitration.