May 24, 2009
Editorial
KBR Does It Again

Far from suffering for its shoddy military contracting in Iraq,
Congressional investigators have found that KBR Inc. was awarded $83
million in performance bonuses. Even worse, more than half came after
Pentagon investigators linked faulty KBR wiring to the electrocution of
four soldiers intent on relaxation. One soldier died taking a shower and
another in a swimming pool.

How such settings became part of harm’s way for the military was the
question put to an electrical engineer hired by the Army who reported
finding that 90 percent of KBR’s wiring work in Iraq was not done
safely. Some 70,000 buildings where troops lived and worked were not up
to code, according to the engineer, who told a Congressional hearing of
“some of the most hazardous, worst-quality work I have ever inspected.”

Officials of KBR, the offshoot of the Halliburton conglomerate once run
so lucratively by former Vice President Dick Cheney, deny responsibility
and say the work met the British code used in the war zone. Flat denial
is an all-too-familiar refrain from this most favored and most
questionable of military contractors. The electrical engineer found most
wirers were not experienced in the British code and many were
third-country nationals with no electrical training at all.

Confronted with the airing of these lethal findings, the Pentagon at
least had enough sense to tell Congress last week that KBR bonuses were
suspended pending a full review. Senator Byron Dorgan’s description of
the Pentagon’s performance as “stunning incompetence” is an
understatement for such tragic profiteering.

The Army continues to investigate the deaths and reports of hundreds of
nonlethal shocks suffered by troops. It has ordered emergency repairs,
but the electrical inspector found that the building where the showering
soldier was electrocuted still was not safely grounded by KBR until last
October, 10 months after his death.


NY Times