Several Pentagon sources maintained that a contractor that had been providing services to the U.S. military in Iraq had negligently caused the deaths of soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Today important information was announced on CNN about this accusation, with investigations revealing the company, KBR, showing culpability in the death of Ryan Maseth, a 24-year-old highly-decorated Green Beret, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who died while taking a shower at a base in Baghdad.
The death of Maseth occurred in January last year and is said to have occurred because the contractor did not use qualified electricians in their installations. His was one of many deaths that occurred as a result of what has been defined as shoddy work. The story has been followed and updated regularly by
CNN.
The November accusation by the Pentagon initially gave KBR, or Kellog, Brown and Root, what is called a “Level II Corrective Action Request.” That is the type of warning given to those who are thought to be in noncompliance which can proceed withdrawal of contracts.
Officials at the Pentagon estimated about a dozen soldiers had been electrocuted in Iraq due to faulty wiring and improper grounding and that approximately 18 had been electrocuted since 2003. Some congressional sources have observed that the number could be higher if Afghanistan is included.
Maseth’s mother, Cheryl Harris, demanded answers about the death of her son, provoking the oversight hearings that have taken place during the months since Ryan’s death. Much of the
media had been pushing the Pentagon to review their statistics and disclose information about the issue of KBR’s lack of proper work that led to the death of innocence.
Robert Casey, Democratic Senator from Pennsylvania, said"The fact that there's an assessment made at this level -- a level three -- which is very serious, indicates to me, and to a lot of people, how serious this problem is. --It's really a question in the end about justice. The only way we can have justice in a case like this for the families and for the American people is to have serious accountability. That has not happened yet. There's still a lot of parties here that have not been held to account for what happened here,"
CNN reported how difficult it was to get people to discuss what had happened regarding the faulty wiring and electrical problems leading to the electrocutions because of a certain
code of silence. Problems had been reported months before when a
congressional committee learned that a Sgt. Justin Hummer had reported electrical problems in July 2007 with a work order that had warned, "Pipes have voltage, get shocked in the shower."
To date, KBR hasn’t been held responsible for any of the deaths reported and has denied liability in lawsuits. It appears from today’s announcements that the company is on its way to having to acknowledge responsibility and perhaps losing its contractor status.
Other accusations of irregular conditions and practices took place in December 2008 when it was reported that 1000 foreign workers had been held in filthy warehouses without money or a place to work.
Kellogg, Brown and Root was Dick Cheney’s former company that didn’t have to go through a bidding process to contract work in Iraq and Afghanistan,
Cheney declaring that it was the only company qualified to carry out the work.
