HI YALL! Forgive the delay; I am already on tour and didn't realize I wouldn't have wi-fi! This was uploaded as a labor of my hot spot's love. Here's the part 2 no one asked for! Let's perfect our Lois Griffin impression Whiplash-style, crack open a $247 soda, and order 50,000 pounds of nails to get ready to revisit the company I've been obsessed with for years: Kellogg, Brown and Root. Gosh, this private military contracting season is a DOOZY. Fraud, waste and abuse abound!

As always, follow @blenderbluid, keep Amy Do in your offline thoughts, and thank the fabulous audio engineer Casey Synesael!!!!! YIPPEEEE

And if you're the type of person inclined to read the show notes, here's a spoiler: I didn't even cover everything in THIS episode, so there's going to be a part 3. I'm presently on tour so it'll take a few weeks before I'm back to record. Sowwy, I'm just one girly who does NOT plan things out. Just podcastin' for funzies. Anyways, here's my sources:

1. Blood Money: Wated Billions, Lost Lives and Corporate Greed in Iraq, T Christian Miller, May 2007

2. A Look Back at How Fear and False Beliefs Bolstered U.S. Public Support for War in Iraq, Carroll Doherty and Jocelyn Kiley, Pew Research Center, March 14, 2023

3. Excerpted from The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda’s Leader, by Peter L. Bergen, accessed through Vanity Fair, January 1 2006

4. Here's a link to the Saddam playing cards published by the DIA: https://archive.org/details/030411D6570c001/030411-d-6570c-001/page/n27/mode/2up

5. Buyers beware: The real Iraq 'most wanted' cards are still awaiting distribution, Lisa Burgess, Stars and Stripes, April 17, 2003

6. Here's KBR employee Linda Warren's testimony (start at 21:30): https://www.c-span.org/video/?205080-1/contracting-abuses-iraq

7. Here is the 2005 testimony of KBR employee Rory Mayberry: https://www.dpc.senate.gov/hearings/hearing22/mayberry.pdf

8. Here's a link to the DPC report called Major Findings: DPC Oversight Hearings on Waste, Fraud, and Corruption in Iraq: https://www.dpc.senate.gov/dpcdocpr.cfm?doc_name=sr-111-1-116 (nails anecdote)

9. Iraq War Whistleblowers Represented by Constantine Cannon Secure $108.75 Million Settlement with KBR, Constantine Cannon press release, July 5 2023

10. “One hundred point four billion dollars..." quote from Democrat Mike Ross from this link (time stamp 5:43:40):