Toby, I understand it fully, but the way your original sentence was phrased, you show a desire to place more blame on the story than the contractor itself.
Your last sentence, quoting the IG report, illustrates an untrained mind on reading bureaucratise. What I read into that sentence is that they were able to link the dirty water to at least one of the illnesses. I doubt the full IG report will ever be made public, so the end result is we can both say our interpretations are correct.
By the time the report was completed, I'd be willing to bet that it was reviewed by a number of senior officers in the chain of command. I would not be at all surprised if the wording of a few key sentences were edited for the benefit of KBR.
Cheney has been let off the hook for the mismanagement of the Iraq conflict from 2004-2006. I know being the Veep isn't worth a bucket of warm spit, but Cheney can't have it both ways. He's either a key member of the Bush Presidency, or he's been shuffling papers in the Old Executive Mansion for the past 7 years.
VP Cheney is a good man, and I'll leave it at that.