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. Electrical problems were the most urgent noncombat safety hazard for soldiers in Iraq, according to an army survey issued in February 2007. It noted "a safety threat theaterwide created by the poor-quality electrical fixtures procured and installed, sometimes incorrectly, thus resulting in a significant number of fires."
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.
Electrical problems were the most urgent noncombat safety hazard for soldiers in Iraq, according to an army survey issued in February 2007. It noted "a safety threat theaterwide created by the poor-quality electrical fixtures procured and installed, sometimes incorrectly, thus resulting in a significant number of fires."
Why can't the writters of the story get the back story, and its implications, straight? They make it sound like poor little KBR was pulled into this horrible circumstance of having to make Saddam's palaces work for the troops, but those brown-skins can only build buildings that can't be fixed after 7 years of raping and pillaging.
In reality, to disguise the real number of people in Iraq and to pretend that the Rumsfeld small army routine was smart, and to give Bush's buddies the remaining lucre of the dying empire, the Army and Marines aren't feeding or housing themselves. Between Blackwater and KBR, billions of dollars are gone, and the military has been mal-fed by KBR's malevolence and now we find, actually being electrocuted by KBR's incompetence.
This is the true legacy of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. Re-name the facilities where people were electrocuted in the shower or burned in their huts in honor of the disgraced and fallen Emperors, Cheney & Bush - perhaps they can be imprisoned in them after their war crimes trials. Never underestimate their intelligence, always underestimate their knowledge.
Frank Delaney ~ Ireland
