Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, a 24 year old Green Beret, died in Iraq last January in a military base bathroom, of electrocution. He's one of 13 soldiers to die because of faulty electrical work. Press reports at the time mentioned what was known of contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root's (KBR) role:
... Army documents obtained by CNN show that U.S.-paid contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) inspected the building and found serious electrical problems a full 11 months before Maseth was electrocuted.KBR noted "several safety issues concerning the improper grounding of electrical devices." But KBR's contract did not cover "fixing potential hazards." It covered repairing items only after they broke down. ...
Based on the testimony given at a Senate hearing on the matter, Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Bob Casey (D-PA) asked the Army to investigate. The results are in and the Army has changed Maseth's cause of death from "accidental" to "negligent homicide". And while this raises the possibility of criminal action against KBR, there's plenty of blame to go around.
For starters, KBR outsourced the electrical work to what Dorgan's office describes as "unqualified third country nationals." Then their own inspectors realized that the wiring in question was dangerous, but they felt no obligation to repair the shoddy job they'd done in the first place. They should absolutely face criminal prosecution.
But what about the Department of Defense's role in this?
Why didn't the contract cover potential hazards? Why was KBR able to get away with hiring people that lacked proper qualifications? Why wasn't corrective action taken after the first death, instead of the thirteenth? Why were families given misinformation about these soldiers' deaths? And why, most importantly, did the Army take no action towards KBR except for continuing to employ them?
As I understand it, civilian leadership under the Bush administration would have been responsible for approving the terms and signing off on these contracts. They wanted their friends at KBR to have a contract, to be able to charge a premium for cut-rate work and pocket the difference, and to not be troubled by any pesky oversight.
Dorgan and Casey held a press conference yesterday to ask for a meeting with Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Casey called the situation a "continuing outrage." And as Dorgan said in his released statement, "We want to know what Secretary Gates intends to do to ensure that contractors are acting responsibly, particularly in light of the Army's reported finding that KBR and its supervisors may have been criminally negligent. We also want to know why the DOD has not pursued a process to debar contractors who are fleecing our taxpayers and putting soldiers at risk."
I don't know about you, but that's the sort of talk that makes me think a Senator is earning their pay. Let's hope the follow through is as encouraging.
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