[Vision2020] KBR Gets Pentagon Electrical Contract
Tom Hansen
thansen at moscow.com
Tue Feb 10 13:28:26 PST 2009
That's right.
In spite of a criminal investigation into the electocution deaths of
several US aervice members, caused by faulty wiring performed by emplpyees
of KBR, KBR has been awarded a $35 million contract by the Department of
Defense to do . . . electrical work.
Oh, and one other thing: KBR is a subsidiary of . . . . . . Halliburton.
Hmmm.
Courtesy of the Associated Press.
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KBR Gets Pentagon Electrical Contract -- Despite Link to Electrocutions in
Iraq
Published: February 08, 2009 12:15 AM ET
WASHINGTON Defense contractor KBR Inc. has been awarded a $35 million
Pentagon contract involving major electrical work, even as it is under
criminal investigation in the electrocution deaths of at least two U.S.
soldiers in Iraq.
The announcement of the new KBR contract came just months after the
Pentagon, in strongly worded correspondence obtained by The Associated
Press, rejected the company's explanation of serious mistakes in Iraq and
its proposed improvements. A senior Pentagon official, David J. Graff,
cited the company's "continuing quality deficiencies" and said KBR
executives were "not sufficiently in touch with the urgency or realities
of what was actually occurring on the ground."
"Many within DOD (the Department of Defense) have lost or are losing all
remaining confidence in KBR's ability to successfully and repeatedly
perform the required electrical support services mission in Iraq," wrote
Graff, commander of the Defense Contract Management Agency, in a Sept. 30
letter.
Graff rejected the company's claims that it wasn't required to follow U.S.
electrical codes for its work on U.S. military facilities in Iraq. KBR has
said it would cost an extra $560 million to refurbish buildings in Iraq
used by the U.S. military, including Saddam Hussein's palaces, which among
other problems are based on a 220-volt standard rather than the American
120-volt standard.
KBR announced last week it won a new $35.4 million contract from the Army
Corps of Engineers to design and build a convoy support center at Camp
Adder in southern Iraq. It will include a power plant, electrical
distribution center, water purification and distribution systems,
wastewater and information systems and road paving.
Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said the new KBR contract was inappropriate.
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said he has formally asked the Corps of Engineers
whether it was confident KBR could accomplish it and whether the Corps had
any alternatives.
"This is hardly the time to award KBR a new contract for work they've
already failed to perform adequately, and which put U.S. soldiers at even
greater risk," Dorgan said in a statement. "Ultimately, contractors must
be held accountable, and so should those who continue to award these
contracts."
A KBR spokeswoman, Heather Browne, said the company was committed to
providing quality services and would comply with the military's
requirements in its work on the Camp Adder contract.
The AP has learned that Army criminal agents have reopened the death
investigation of Staff Sgt. Christopher Lee Everett, 23, a member of the
Texas Army National Guard. Everett was killed September 2005 in Iraq when
the power washer he was using to clean a vehicle short-circuited. KBR and
another contractor, Arkel International, performed the electrical work on
the device's generator, according to a civil lawsuit filed by Everett's
family.
"I think it's something that needs to be done so these electrocutions
don't continue to happen," Everett's mother, Larraine McGee of Huntsville,
Texas, told the AP in a phone interview. "There's no excuse for this
whatsoever." McGee said the Army's senior criminal investigator at Fort
Hood notified her about the reopened investigation.
The AP previously reported that the Army has reclassified another
soldier's electrocution death as a negligent homicide caused by KBR and
two of its supervisors. Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, 24, a Green Beret from
Pittsburgh, was electrocuted in his barracks shower. An Army investigator
said KBR's contractor failed to ensure qualified electricians and plumbers
did the work. The case is under legal review, and KBR has said it was not
responsible for Maseth's death.
The deaths of Everett and Maseth are among the 18 under review by the
Pentagon's inspector general. Some of the deaths have been blamed on
improperly installed or maintained electrical equipment. In three cases,
service members were shocked while showering. Families of Maseth and
Everett also have sued KBR in federal court for wrongful death; the
company is attempting to have the lawsuits dismissed.
The Corps of Engineers said KBR has earned $615 million on 30 similar
contracts as the newest it awarded to the company and noted that KBR has
not been banned or suspended from winning U.S. government contracts. The
government can ban companies in cases of fraud, antitrust violations,
bribery, tax evasion or for actions that reflect "a lack of business
integrity or business honesty," according to federal rules.
"KBR has not been debarred, suspended, nor have they been proposed for
debarment from government contracting," Corps spokeswoman Joan Kibler said.
KBR was previously owned by Halliburton Co., the oil services conglomerate
that former Vice President Dick Cheney once led. Democrats have long
complained it benefited from ties to Cheney.
Separately, court papers filed in Houston on Friday show KBR is preparing
to plead guilty to federal bribery charges for promising and paying tens
of millions of dollars in bribes to officials in Nigeria in exchange for
engineering and construction contracts between 1995 and 2004.
Browne, the KBR spokeswoman, said the company had no comment. The company
is expected to appear in federal court next week as part of a plea deal.
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Seeya round town, Moscow.
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
"For a lapsed Lutheran born-again Buddhist pan-Humanist Universalist
Unitarian Wiccan Agnostic like myself there's really no reason ever to go
to work."
- Roy Zimmerman
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