[Pen-l] another private military contracting disaster

["Jim Devine" <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

from SLATE, 7/18/08:
>The New York Times leads with word that the Pentagon has failed to acknowledge how many people have been injured or killed due to faulty electrical work on military bases in Iraq. The fact that private contractors have done shoddy electrical work in Iraq was already known, but the paper got some internal documents and says the problem is much worse than the Pentagon has admitted. Even worse is that top military officials knew about the long-running problem but failed to do anything about it. ...

> In just one six-month period that ran through January 2007, there were at least 283 electrical fires that damaged U.S. facilities in Iraq, reports the NYT. On top of that, soldiers had already died from an electrical fire in 2006. And, as if that weren't enough, an Army survey released in February 2007 said electrical problems were the most urgent noncombat safety issue for soldiers in Iraq. The paper isn't able to come up with an exact number of people who were injured or killed by the electrical problems, but by all accounts the fact that it was a problem was well-known. Even KBR, the private contractor that provides many basic services to U.S. troops, recognized there's a "systematic problem" with electrical work on U.S. bases. Despite all these warning signs, the Pentagon did little to address the issue until the family of a Green Beret who was electrocuted earlier this year began to push for answers and lawmakers started paying attention. <

-- 
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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