Posts Tagged ‘electrocution’
KBR does crap contracting in Iraq. Pentagon forks over bonuses!
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
The U.S. Army paid “tens of millions of dollars in bonuses” to KBR, its biggest contractor in Iraq, even after it concluded the firm’s electrical work had put U.S. soldiers at risk.
The Senate Democratic Policy Committee plans to hold a hearing today to examine KBR’s operations in Iraq, and question why the Army rewarded the Houston-based company.
The panel says KBR has been linked to at least two, and as many as five, electrocution deaths of U.S. soldiers and contractors in Iraq due to “shoddy work.”
Investigators believe hundreds of other soldiers may have received electrical shocks, the source added. The Army is investigating…
During the Bush administration, some critics claimed Cheney’s deferred compensation from the company represented a conflict of interest and questioned Halliburton’s winning of lucrative government contracts in Iraq.
Don’t you love how polite everyone is to these creeps?
Cheney’s Oil Patch buddies get endless no-bid contracts for the war he and Bush started. They do shoddy work. They are caught time and again ripping off taxpayer’s dollars. Our soldiers’ lives are further endangered by their lousy work. And what’s the response from the Pentagon?
They pay ‘em bonuses.
Shoddy wiring ‘everywhere’ on Iraq bases
Daylife/AP Photo
Thousands of buildings at U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan have such poorly installed wiring that American troops face life-threatening risks, a top inspector for the Army says.
“It was horrible — some of the worst electrical work I’ve ever seen,” said Jim Childs, a master electrician and the top civilian expert in an Army safety survey. Childs told CNN that “with the buildings the way they are, we’re playing Russian roulette.”
Childs recently returned from Iraq, where he is taking part in a yearlong review aimed at correcting electrical hazards on U.S. bases. He told CNN that thousands of buildings in Iraq and Afghanistan are so badly wired that troops are at serious risk of death or injury.
He said problems are “everywhere” in Iraq, where 18 U.S. troops have died by electrocution since 2003. All deaths occurred in different circumstances and different locations, but many happened on U.S. bases being managed by various military contractors. The Army has reopened investigations in at least five cases, according to Pentagon sources.
Of the nearly 30,000 buildings the Army’s “Task Force Safe” has examined so far, Childs said more than half “failed miserably.” And 8,527 had such serious problems that inspectors gave them a “flash” warning, meaning repairs had to be completed in four hours or the facility evacuated.
He said the majority of those buildings were wired by contractor KBR, based in Houston, Texas.
Well, there’s a surprise, eh?
Darwin awards candidates: Copper thieves electrocuted in SA
Two men near the South African city of Johannesburg have been electrocuted while trying to steal copper wire from power cables just after first light.
“They tried to pull the cables using wires; they were standing on the ground,” a Johannesburg Emergency Management Services spokesman said…
Stolen copper is often sold to scrap yards, which then export it.
Mr Morokane said the two men, who were thought to be aged between 25 and 30, were trying to steal the copper from power lines running near a main road between Johannesburg and Pretoria.
Mr Morokane said the power lines had between 3,000 kilowatts and 6,000 kilowatts running through them…
The case had been handed over the South African Police Service.
I believe the remains of the two thieves are being kept in a cigar box at the Police Station.
