NEW YORK TIMES REPORTS: SHODDY ELECTRICAL WORK BY KBR PUTS SOLDIERS AT RISK IN IRAQ

Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a onetime subsidiary of Halliburton which Vice President Dick Cheney served as CEO, has been charged with not providing proper electrial wiring for U.S. bases in Iraq and the situation is worse than previously reported.

July 18, 2008
Electrical Risks at Bases in Iraq Worse Than Previously Said

By JAMES RISEN
THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/world/middleeast/18contractors.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

WASHINGTON — Shoddy electrical work by private contractors on United States military bases in Iraq is widespread and dangerous, causing more deaths and injuries from fires and shocks than the Pentagon has acknowledged, according to internal Army documents.

During just one six-month period — August 2006 through January 2007 — at least 283 electrical fires destroyed or damaged American military facilities in Iraq, including the military’s largest dining hall in the country, documents obtained by The New York Times show.

Two soldiers died in an electrical fire at their base near Tikrit in 2006, the records note, while another was injured while jumping from a burning guard tower in May 2007.

And while the Pentagon has previously reported that 13 Americans have been electrocuted in Iraq, many more have been injured, some seriously, by shocks, according to the documents.

A log compiled earlier this year at one building complex in Baghdad disclosed that soldiers complained of receiving electrical shocks in their living quarters on an almost daily basis.