Contractors <I>Still</i> Electrocuting Troops
By Nicole Belle Saturday May 03, 2008 9:00amThe Pentagon has provided $30 billion in contracts to KBR during the Iraq War. Apparently that's just the Basic Troop Support Package, however, because it's not enough money to keep the contractor from electrocuting a dozen troops in showers and elsewhere throughout Iraq and Afghanistan. [..]
The New York Times piece goes on to explain:
The Army has provided little detailed information about the electrocutions, other than to say late Friday that 10 soldiers had been electrocuted in Iraq. A House committee has also reported that two marines died similarly.
One former KBR electrician was quite frank about what's going on:
And Mr. Bliss, who saw a soldier standing next to him in Qalat, Afghanistan, receive a severe shock from an electrical box that was not supposed to be charged, said his KBR bosses mocked him for raising safety issues. They were "not giving the Army what it needed," he said, "and not giving the soldiers what they deserved."
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Yes it's a nasty vicious world. Good news doesn't "sell".
Id like to see those KBR bosses who laughed at the misfortunes of the electrocuted soldiers drawn and quartered, and then electrocuted. clearly they dont care and never did, its always been about the money. eternal shame to them.
What do you expect with electricians using 'Burcaps' aka 'Wingnuts' to connect wiring together !!!!
At once both amusing and scary as heck the antique US wiring standards.
Well, at least they are making a profit. That is always good news...
how does it go 'electrocuting them over there, so we dont have to electrocute them over here'
then again going by those pictures of the flooded barracks in the US...
If cars ran on sausage the energy companies would just send the troops directly to the meat grinder at the meat packing plant.
Entrenched codes and industrial inertia is a big factor in a lot of this.
Case in point the UL standards for electric vehicles, "wrap rheostats in cotton wool and check for charring"
this is in the day and age of embedded PWM controllers and regenerative braking. :O
But this is Republican style American Quality.
L.A. Confidential @ 8:
Yes, dont upset the apple cart, business as usual and outsource as cheaply as possible.
Moral to the story. There are no shortages of opportunities for humans to fu*k things up on this planet.
ferrofluid @ 9:
But we have our flags on a stick, yellow ribbon stickers. Makes us PROUD.
It's all part of supporting the troops. There's nothing to see here. Move on. Why do you hate America?
If we let the Republicans use troops for props while turning a blind eye to how contractors are poisoning and electricuting them and how troops have to wade through feces-filled water in their own barracks....
If the survivors of murdered troops could sue KBR in court with no ceiling on punitive damages then they would soon be out of business.
Supporting the troops is a beard for raping the American treasury.
They can die in the shower or swimming pool, or they can come home to the VA and get what my Great-Uncle got after yet another misguided American war: He was electrocuted during shock treatment for PTSD.
The Bush Co Sales Rejection and Human Suffering Company
AP May 03
European oil groups Royal Dutch Shell and Repsol YPF are under pressure from the United States to end talks with Iran about a multi-billion dollar natural gas deal, the Expansion newspaper reported Saturday.
Press Release . . .
"We believe that sales and cooperation are bad for everyone and suffering and death builds character!"
KBR (along with Blackwater, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Rice) should be tried for War Crimes (feel free to add anyone I might have left out)
OK .
The Pentagon cannot maintain a barracks on it's home turf , the USA. That's obvious.
Simple plumbing and roofing . I can do that type of construction and I am not a plumber or roofer.
Now it appears the Pentagon cannot implement a simply QC program for installation of electrical systems. I wired my basement, I know what grounding is and I am not an electrician.
It makes you wonder if all that incredibly expensive and complicated military equipment actually works.
This is actually a cultural problem , I believe..
I am starting research for the next car.In fact I have the Consumer Reports Ratings & Review magazine in front of me right now.
Here is what stands out as the next choice of car.
ACURA, HONDA, HYUNDAI, INFINITI, LEXUS, TOYOTA.
Is there a pattern ?
robbie @ 16:
Do we have a webpage big enough ;)
SCHRODINGER'S CAT @ 17:
"While opportunism isn’t new in U.S. politics, never did so many in one family extract so many dollars from taxpayers as when George Bush senior was president a decade ago" -- David E. Scheim, author of Contract on America.
"What you’ve got with Bush [George senior] is absolutely the largest number of siblings and children involved in what looks like a never-ending hustle." -- Republican pundit Kevin Philips
SCHRODINGER'S CAT @ 17:
Same pattern as what happened to the stagnant 70s British car industry, bosses and bean counters destroyed it in the name of dividends and bonuses and almost zero R&D.
Electric showers? Surprised they're not bathing in gassy ovens.
SCHRODINGER'S CAT @ 17:
Don't overlook the fact that KBR imports a lot of East Asians into Iraq to do the work at meager salaries. The patern i see is greed.
Crunch time was 1980 when 1/4 of British heavy industry collapsed during that WB and IMF inspired recession,
Thatcher had to follow their monetary policies or have the funding (free money) cut off.
Mr. Bliss, who saw a soldier standing next to him in Qalat, Afghanistan, receive a severe shock from an electrical box that was not supposed to be charged, said his KBR bosses mocked him for raising safety issues. They were “not giving the Army what it needed,” he said, “and not giving the soldiers what they deserved.”
***************************************************
Based on what I read about this over at ThinkProgress, Bliss was actually fired for calling the attention of a federal official to the problem since KBR apparently refuses to do anything about it. Since they've received at least thirty billion so far in contracts from the federal government, there's no way KBR can legitimately make the claim that they can't do anything about the problem...not at those prices! The fact that KBR has fired people in apparent retaliation for calling attention to a safety problem which has already caused at least ten fatalities suggests that this goes way beyond criminal negligence into the realm of deliberate malfeasance. If this sort of thing were going on stateside, KBR would have been hauled into court and heavily fined long before this.
SCHRODINGER'S CAT @ 17:
Yeah it was over for 'merkan cars ten years ago. We owned our LAST ONE and never again. A total POS.
They're hardly automotive companies any more. They're just extensions of the gluttony that is big oil now. Look at the ridiculously inefficient cars they're STILL making!! Utter shite.
The Great 'War' in Iraq (Afghanistan) Swindle continues.
SCHRODINGER'S CAT @ 17:
Its where the money is being targeted at, I would imagine budgets are being redirected to Iraq, Afghanistan and black ops and assorted scams and thefts.
Its like the last moments in Monopoly or a horse race, where its all or nothing, going for broke, a last big gamble.
The neocons are gambling on winning the (control of) oil in the ME and Asia, thats their winning ticket.
Come 2009 they hope to have the big oil companies set up pretty and themselves in the drivers seats.
Alice (formerly Hussein, live free of the Borg or die) @ 25:
The two Os the neocons love, oil and opium.
curtilingus @ 21:
Fuel air bombs and nerve gasses are only used by the complaints dept on annoying customers.
Iraq Veterans are still trying to be heard..
http://www.ivaw.org/faq
Investigate the Media Pundits
--> Bush loyalist Fran Townsend joining CNN.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/04/bush-loyalist-fran-townsend-joining-...
Mark Flessner, an assistant US attorney has something to say about Ms. Townsend....
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=fran_townsend
Jesus H frickin' //////!!!!!!!!!!
This is sure to be all over the MSM NEWS.......NOT!
Pat Tillman's mother still has something to say..
She is speaking out about her son's death in her first television interview,
to be broadcast this Sunday on 60 Minutes.
http://rawstory.com/rawreplay/?p=962
We will never forget when Kevin Tillman spoke.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-EwReGl88o
ferrofluid @ 27:
Make that 3 "O"s they love Oil, Opium, and Obedience.
Atheistic @ 32:
Or in the Rev. Haggards ex fuhrer of the NAEs case hot gay male action, crystal meth, and free money.
and they say religion is boring and mundane :O
The NAE should have kept Haggard and made him a recruiting poster star.
"The Army has provided little detailed information about the electrocutions, other than to say late Friday that 10 soldiers had been electrocuted in Iraq. A House committee has also reported that two marines died similarly."
Shocking.
Electrocutions prove the surge is working.It's also a good way to keep the troops in line. America doesn't need any troops questioning the accomplished mission.
L.A. Confidential @ 15:
Hey, at least ShrubCo still sort of remembers the Dutch are
an allysomeone we haven't fucked over much yet. Just giving them a chance to get out of the way before the shelling begins.BigChickenDinner @ 36:
LOL...
Privatization..WOOHOO....(glad I was out of the USMC before this shit started). These bastards can all rot in hell. SAH
Also reported on in the New York Times:
Despite Alert, Flawed Wiring Still Kills G.I.’s
By JAMES RISEN
NYT | Published: May 4, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/world/middleeast/04electrocute.html
Imagine you're living in a war zone, and you risk your life every day. Then even at your own base, you risk your life every time you go to the shower. That's torture; not knowing if you'll be shocked or killed. You know, "once bitten, twice shy." We're very much like Pavlov's dogs.
Were these soldiers electrocuted dead, or injured?
xoites (Bitter before Country was Cool) defends Constitution @ 22:
xoites
There should have been a QC program in place during the construction process managed by the Owner whoever that may be.
Somone has to keep the cowboys in line, and in this case maybe the cowboys are the East Asians .
At the end of construction the buildings have to be turned over to the Owner through a Commissioning program again managed by the Owner in conjunction with the contractor to confirm that the mechanical and electrical systems are working as per spec.
The contractor does not get paid in full until the Owner signs off.
Maybe the QC program and Commissioning program were subcontracted out to the lowest bidder.
"This is sure to be all over the MSM NEWS…….NOT!"
To give them some credit, the linked story is in the NY Times, which is about as mainstream as it gets. Let's hope they follow up.
Actually, this has been going on for some time. There were wiring defects in the new Marine baracks at the American Embassy (the fortress) in Iraq a year ago. The wiring was so bad they wouldn't let the Marines in the new baracks. It wasn't even up to National Electrical Code Standards. The wire being used was a guage too thin causing a fire hazard throughout the baracks. The oversight in the construction process was and is horrendous. If we can't even provide safe electrical standards for our own people how the hell will the damaged infrastructure for the Iraqis ever get done?
Really not surprising. Just think of all the half wits and morally bankrupt creeps that enlist in the export death business (aka military).
Why would anyone expect them to be competent electricians!!!!
This is one shocking story.
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