[Vision2020] KBR Gets Pentagon Electrical Contract

[Tom Hansen]

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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