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Despite Alert, Flawed Wiring Still Kills GI's
By James Risen
The New York Times

Sunday 04 May 2008

Washington - In October 2004, the United States Army issued an
urgent bulletin to commanders across Iraq, warning them of a deadly
new threat to American soldiers. Because of flawed electrical work by
contractors, the bulletin stated, soldiers at American bases in Iraq
had received severe electrical shocks, and some had even been
electrocuted.

The bulletin, with the headline "The Unexpected Killer," was
issued after the horrific deaths of two soldiers who were caught in
water - one in a shower, the other in a swimming pool - that was
suddenly electrified after poorly grounded wiring short-circuited.

"We've had several shocks in showers and near misses here in
Baghdad, as well as in other parts of the country," Frank Trent, an
expert with the Army Corps of Engineers, wrote in the bulletin. "As
we install temporary and permanent power on our projects, we must
ensure that we require contractors to properly ground electrical
systems."

Since that warning, at least two more American soldiers have been
electrocuted in similar circumstances. In all, at least a dozen
American military personnel have been electrocuted in Iraq, according
to the Pentagon and Congressional investigators.

While several deaths have been attributed to inadvertent contact
with power lines under battlefield conditions, the Army bulletin said
that five deaths over the preceding year had apparently been caused
by faulty grounding, and the circumstances of others have not been
fully explained by the Army. Many more soldiers have been injured by
shocks, Pentagon officials and soldiers say.

The accidental deaths and close calls, which are being
investigated by Congress and the Defense Department's inspector
general, raise new questions about the oversight of contractors in
the war zone, where unjustified killings by security guards, shoddy
reconstruction projects and fraud involving military supplies have
spurred previous inquiries.

American electricians who worked for KBR, the Houston-based
defense contractor that is responsible for maintaining American bases
in Iraq and Afghanistan, said they repeatedly warned company managers
and military officials about unsafe electrical work, which was often
performed by poorly trained Iraqis and Afghans paid just a few
dollars a day.

One electrician warned his KBR bosses in his 2005 letter of
resignation that unsafe electrical work was "a disaster waiting to
happen." Another said he witnessed an American soldier in Afghanistan
receiving a potentially lethal shock. A third provided e-mail
messages and other documents showing that he had complained to KBR
and the government that logs were created to make it appear that
nonexistent electrical safety systems were properly functioning.

KBR itself told the Pentagon in early 2007 about unsafe
electrical wiring at a base near the Baghdad airport, but no repairs
were made. Less than a year later, a soldier was electrocuted in a
shower there.

"I don't feel like they did their job," Carmen Nolasco Duran of
La Puente, Calif., said of Pentagon officials. Her brother,
Specialist Marcos O. Nolasco, was electrocuted at a base in Baiji in
May 2004 while showering. "They hired these contractors and yet they
didn't go and double-check that the work was fine."

The Defense Contract Management Agency, which is responsible for
supervising maintenance work by contractors at American bases in
Iraq, defended its performance. In a written statement, the agency
said it had no information that staff members "were aware" of the
Army alert or "failed to take appropriate action in response to
unsafe conditions brought to our attention."

Keith Ernst, who stepped down Wednesday as the agency's director,
said, though, that the agency was "stretched too thin" in Iraq and
that the small number of contract officers did not have expertise in
dealing with so-called life support contracts, like that awarded to
KBR to provide food, shelter and building maintenance. "We don't have
the technical capability for overseeing life support systems," he
said.

For its part, KBR, which until last year was known as Kellogg,
Brown and Root and was a subsidiary of Halliburton, denied that any
lapses by the company had led to the electrocutions of American
soldiers. "KBR's commitment to employee safety and the safety of
those the company serves is unwavering," said a spokeswoman, Heather
Browne. "KBR has found no evidence of a link between the work it has
been tasked to perform and the reported electrocutions."

Ms. Browne declined to respond to the specific accounts of former
KBR electricians.

Those electricians have a ready response to anyone who suggests
that poor electrical work might be considered an unavoidable cost of
war. "The excuse KBR always used was, 'This is a war zone - what do
you expect?' " recalled Jeffrey Bliss, an Ohio electrician who worked
for the company in Afghanistan in 2005 and 2006. "But if you are
going to do the work, you have got to do it safe."

Since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, tens of thousands
of American troops have been housed in pre-existing Iraqi government
buildings, some of them dangerously dilapidated. As part of its $30
billion contract with the Pentagon in Iraq, KBR was required to
repair and upgrade many of the buildings, including their electrical
systems. The company handles maintenance for 4,000 structures and
35,000 containerized housing units in the war zone, the Pentagon
said.

Lawmakers and government investigators say it is now clear that
the Bush administration outsourced so much work to KBR and other
contractors in Iraq that the agencies charged with oversight have
been overwhelmed. The Defense Contracting Management Agency has more
than 9,000 employees, but it has only 60 contract officers in Iraq
and 30 in Afghanistan to supervise nearly 18,000 KBR employees in
Iraq and 4,400 in Afghanistan handling base maintenance.

"All the contract officers can do is check the paperwork," said
one agency official, who asked not to be identified. While about 600
military officers supplement the contract officers, Mr. Ernst said,
the soldiers are not adequately trained for the task.

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 panel has also reported that two
marines died similarly.

In the civilian work force, about 250 workers died from
electrocution in the United States in 2006, according to the Bureau
of Labor Statistics.

According to the Army warning bulletin, two deaths occurred 10
days apart in May 2004 at different bases in northern Iraq.

Staff Sgt. Christopher L. Everett, 23, of the Texas National
Guard was electrocuted in September 2005 while power-washing a Humvee
at Camp Taqaddum, in central Iraq near Falluja. His mother, Larraine
McGee said Army officials had told her that the equipment he was
using was connected to a generator that was not properly grounded,
and that soldiers had previously complained of shocks.

"We were told that as a result of his death all the generators
were being repaired and that it wouldn't happen again," Ms. McGee
said. "But if it is still going on, something's not right."

The most recent fatality occurred on Jan. 2 in Baghdad, when
Staff Sgt. Ryan D. Maseth, a Green Beret, died in a shower after an
improperly grounded water pump short-circuited.

Nearly a year earlier, KBR issued a technical report to the
contracting agency citing safety concerns related to the grounding
and wiring in the building in the Radwaniyah Palace Complex, where
Sergeant Maseth's unit, the Army Fifth Special Forces Group, was
housed.

Another soldier said in an interview that he was repeatedly
shocked in the shower in December 2007 and submitted requests for
repairs. But nothing was done until the day after Sergeant Maseth's
death, when the defense agency ordered KBR to correct the problem,
according to Pentagon documents.

Cheryl Harris, Sergeant Maseth's mother, said in an interview
that the Army initially told her that her son had taken an electrical
appliance into the shower with him. Later, she said, officials told
her that investigators had found electrical wires hanging down around
the shower. She said she had been skeptical of both accounts and
learned the truth only after repeatedly questioning Army officials.

Her family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against KBR, the
only such claim brought in any of the electrical deaths.

"I knew Ryan would not get into a shower with an electrical
appliance, and having wires hanging overhead didn't make sense," said
Ms. Harris, of Cranberry Township, Pa. "My biggest question is
really, why would KBR do a safety inspection, know about the
electrical problems and not alert the troops?"

Long before Sergeant Maseth's death, KBR electricians were
complaining about the dangers of unsafe electrical work at bases.

In 2006, John McLain was working as a KBR electrician at the
United States regional embassy compound in Hilla, south of Baghdad,
when he made a disturbing discovery. A KBR quality control inspector
had recently cited employees there for failing to file quarterly
ground resistance testing logs - reports on whether the wiring in the
upgraded embassy building was properly grounded and safe.

Mr. McLain soon realized that the testing was not being
conducted, because the building had never been grounded, though KBR
and at least one Iraqi subcontractor were supposed to install proper
safeguards during a renovation the previous year. Mr. McLain said he
had sent a series of increasingly blunt memos and e-mail warnings
about the safety hazards to KBR officials.

Mr. McLain said other KBR electricians later created logs that
incorrectly made it appear that the grounding system existed. KBR
fired him in 2007 after he told a visiting defense contracting agency
official about his concerns. His candor proved useless, however. Mr.
McLain said that the contracting agency official showed no interest.
"He said, 'I'm not an electrician; I don't know what you are talking
about,' "Mr. McLain recalled.

Noris Rogers, who worked for KBR in Afghanistan in 2005, said he
repeatedly complained to his supervisors that electrical work at Camp
Eggers, the American military's command base in Kabul, Afghanistan,
did not meet the requirements of the company's Pentagon contract.

Mr. Bliss, who saw a soldier in Qalat, Afghanistan, get 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."

References

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/wo...ectrocute.html