Will Their Headstones Read: "Killed by KBR While Serving in Iraq"
One of the articles I wrote about KBR said this: "This is a company that provided our troops with dirty water that caused sores and other health problems; spoiled food; electrocuted our troops in the shower with shoddy wiring; tried to avoid paying US taxes through offshoring; some of whose employees were raped and the company tried to cover it up; and a abominable company about which I've written many times."
Another stated: "In late March I wrote, 'At least twelve US military personnel have been electrocuted because of faulty and shoddy wiring at bases in Iraq since 2003. That is reprehensible and criminal.
"Guess which war profiteering company was in charge of maintenance and inspection at a base where a soldier was electrocuted in January when he stepped into the shower?
"KBR, the war profiteer supplying our troops with dirty water and spoiled food and up until last year, a subsidiary of Halliburton where Dick Cheney was CEO. Two months after Cheney's appointment as CEO, a second shell company was established in the Cayman Islands where Halliburton and KBR avoided paying hundreds of millions in taxes by hiring workers through these shell companies in the Caymans.
James Risen of the NYTimes has written a follow-up article on the stories he penned about these terrible electrocutions.
"The Pentagon has ordered electrical inspections of all buildings in Iraq maintained by KBR, a major military contractor, after the electrocutions of several United States service members.
"Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq, told Congress of the new inspections while also disclosing that at least 13 Americans had been electrocuted in Iraq since the war began. Previously, the Pentagon said that 12 had been electrocuted. In addition to those killed, many more service members have received painful shocks, Army officials say.
"General Petraeus's written statement was made public on Monday afternoon by Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania. The statement said that of the 13 Americans electrocuted, 10 were in the Army, 1 in the Marines, and 2 were contractors.
"Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, a Green Beret from Pennsylvania, died Jan. 2 when he stepped into a shower and was electrocuted at his base in Baghdad. His death prompted investigations this spring by Congress and the Pentagon¢s inspector general into evidence that poor electrical work at facilities used by American personnel had led to other electrocutions.
"Sergeant Maseth's family has filed a wrongful death suit against KBR. Last week the family filed a motion in Federal District Court in Pittsburgh that included a new statement from another Green Beret, Sgt. Justin Hummer of the 10th Special Forces Group, saying that he suffered electrical shocks four or five times in 2007 in the same shower where Sergeant Maseth died.
"Since the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, tens of thousands of American troops have been housed in older Iraqi buildings. KBR and other companies have been paid millions of dollars to repair and upgrade the buildings, including their electrical systems.
"In February 2007, nearly a year before Sergeant Maseth was killed, KBR issued a technical report to the Defense Contract Management Agency citing safety concerns about the grounding and wiring in the building in the Radwaniya Palace complex in Baghdad being used as housing for Sergeant Maseth¢s unit in the Army¢s Fifth Special Forces Group.
"For the next year, neither KBR nor the Pentagon made repairs."
Thirteen deaths due to negligence sounds like criminal manslaughter. When is the indictment and trial of KBR corporate honchos going to occur?
Perhaps the headstones of all these electrocuted soldiers should have read: "Killed by KBR, a Bush/Cheney US corporate war profiteering criminal crony, while serving in Iraq."
I again ask the question that I have posed many times before: "Why is KBR, the Bush/Cheney corporate war profiteering crony company, still a Department of Defense contractor?
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