Press Release: Senators Want Independent Safety Review of KBR’s Electrical Work in Iraq
July 18, 2008
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), who chaired a Senate hearing last week on the electrocution of U.S. troops in Iraq, and four other U.S. Senators are objecting to the Pentagon’s selection of contractor KBR to inspect its own electrical work in Iraq. The hearing examined reports that at least a dozen U.S. troops were electrocuted since 2004 at U.S. military bases in Iraq where KBR holds the contract for electrical work. The Pentagon asked KBR to inspect its work for hazards following those reports.
Dorgan, Senators Bob Casey (D-PA), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) raised their objection in a letter sent Friday to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and General David Petraeus. The inspections should be independently conducted by someone “both well-qualified and objective,” they wrote.
Dorgan also called Friday on Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and General David Petraeus to take immediate action to suspend KBR’s contract for electrical work at U.S. military bases in Iraq and replace the company with “people who know what they are doing and whose work won’t put the lives of American soldiers at risk.” Dorgan said.
A New York Times report Friday revealed electrical problems at military bases in Iraq are much more numerous, widespread and severe than previously acknowledged. “This is a problem that requires immediate action to protect American troops,” Dorgan said. “Somebody other than KBR ought to be doing electrical work at U.S. bases in Iraq immediately. KBR’s failure is massive and American troops are dying because of it.”
On July 11, Dorgan presided at a Senate Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) hearing which examined the electrocution reports. The panel heard testimony from the mothers of two soldiers who were electrocuted and a soldier who saw other U.S. troops being shocked. It also received testimony from two KBR whistleblowers who said KBR routinely hires non-electricians – even in supervisory posts – to perform electrical work and resists fixing known hazards.
The testimony “documented KBR’s poor performance and lax standards in hiring employees to do electrical work. Given this track record, and the fact that a number of deaths have occurred at facilities maintained by the company, it makes no sense to entrust KBR with inspecting electrical safety conditions in Iraq,” the Senators wrote.
KBR would also “have strong incentive to describe its own work in the best possible light,” the Senators noted. “In fact, KBR’s spokesperson has insisted from the outset – before KBR has even completed the inspections – that there is no evidence that KBR has done anything wrong. Thus, the company seems to be prejudging the outcome of its investigation.”
Be sure to read the letters to General David Petraeus (click HERE) and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (click HERE)
They do have qualified electricians over there. They just don’t have qualified electrical managers, decent tools, or half the supplies they need, and they are forced to work with unqualified “electricians”.
As I’ve said before, our subcontract TCNs were from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Bosnia. Very few of those guys had experience as electricians (or even HVAC where I worked). In my husband’s shop there was a math teacher, a veterinarian, a goldsmith, a masseuse, lots of laborers, shopkeepers, farmers, bus drivers…. They were good guys and wanted to learn, but they had no knowledge of the field when they started out.
Ms Sparky’s Response:
Wishwords-I know they had qualified electricians over there. I testified to that at the Senate DPC Hearing. Your statement, “They just don’t have qualified electrical managers, decent tools, or half the supplies they need, and they are forced to work with unqualified “electricians”.” Well said. I couldn’t have said it myself!!
Thanks
Ms Sparky
Ms Sparky,
First of all, thank you for continuing to pull on this thread. The fact that the resources we, the American taxpayers, have been providing for the prosecution of this conflict have been squandered in a most irresponsible manner is appalling. Not to mention the unforgivable loss of life as a result of what can only be seen as negligence.
In fact, I myself was a contractor in Iraq for a year. I operated a water production facility at a small camp near Baghdad. And though the theater wide water department did not present a threat of imminent death or danger to our customers (though there was a death in early 2005 caused by the rupture of a water storage tank), we too worked with substandard supplies, inadequately trained personnel, and the constant threat from KBR to be fired for whatever reason they chose to threaten us with that week. A common “joke” was to be asked by your supervisor if you wanted ‘An aisle or window seat, chicken or pork.’. That was a veiled threat alluding to where on the return airplane you would sit and what your return home meal would be. In other words, do as we say or go home.
Waste was rampant. Two particular instances that I am personally familiar with come to mind.
First: The water plants were reverse osmosis purification plants. These are container mounted units that use a very expensive high tech filter element to remove the impurities in the water. The ones used by KBR were built by a Canadian company operating out of Kuwait. There is an unsubstantiated rumor that the manager who specified the units and issued the contract to this company grossly overinflated the needs to the Army so he would be authorized to purchase machines far in excess of what was required. He then reportedly received kickbacks from the manufacturer. When this started to unravel, I heard this manager then mysteriously “disappeared”.
And secondly, let’s talk about waste, on a massive scale. Without getting too technical, the filter elements, called membranes, in the reverse osmosis (R.O.) water purification units get dirty and clogged with impurities after a period of time. There is a very well known process of chemical cleaning that allows these membranes to be used for a long time. The KBR Iraq theater water department chose to not implement this cleaning process and instead simply replaced these elements when they were clogged. Let’s put this in perspective: in the plant I operated, which was a typical single unit, there are 42 of these filter membranes. Each one costs ~ $1000, for a total cost per unit of $42,000. And there were MANY of these units throughout Iraq. This works out to MILLIONS OF DOLLARS wasted needlessly. Some facilities were replacing their entire inventory of elements every few weeks!!!
These are but two examples, and I am sure others who worked in Iraq have similar, if not more dramatic, stories of the enormous black hole the American taxpayer is shoveling money into over there.
PLEASE do not let this go. Someone must be held to task for what has and is happening over there.
Ms Sparky’s Response:
Wow!! That’s all I can really say. We didn’t have any RO units where I was. We may have had one at Camp Prosperity. We only had bottled water to drink and Baghdad city water for showers. NOT POTABLE. You would have thought that KBR would have told me during on-site orientation to not drink the tap water. But they didn’t. When I found out about it from another female who wanted to know why I was brushing my teeth with the tap water…I was very angry. I went to the Camp Manager and asked why there were no signs in the bathrooms he said everyone knows about it. I went to safety and HR. They blew me off. I put signs in the womens bathrooms. Then sometime in 2006 it became a VERY big deal and signs when up everywhere in every bathroom!!! Huh.
I would like to pass your information on to Senator Dorgan’s office.
Thanks
Ms Sparky
hey deb-i worked at falcon. what a fucking joke. our safety manager was a joke. if you brought up a safety concern he would get defensive and blame you. they wouldn’t provide ppe and if they did is was inferior like the cheap ass gloves they bought i think they were made of paper. then if you got hurt it was your fault.
i cant tell you how many times we would get orders in that were the wrong stuff. thousands and thousands of dollars worth. they never returned nothing. just reordered. we had seavans full of shit we couldnt use.
i read all the testimonys. we sure could get the prime rib and lobster and crab legs for sure. i would have traded all that for the right tools and a good pare of gloves.
keep hammering on them.
Ms Deb,
I read part of the articles posted on your site dealing with KBR and what went on at your camp. While you were camped out in Baghdad, I was in Kirkuk. Yes,I was an electrician and was the service driver in our shop. In July we received about 30 – 45 Turkish so-called electricians as well. They also were not much on the English speaking side. Of these men, only 2-5 had any knowledge of any sort of electrical in there back-grounds. If Senator Dorgan or yourself need or want anymore info — look me up and I can give what I remember and I’ll be glad to help in any way that I can.
Ms Sparky’s Response:
I have forwarded your information to Senator Dorgan’s office. Thank you.
Thanks for this informative post