Basically, a contractor is killing our military through their incompetence or outright traitorous actions. I think this rises to that level. They are giving aid and comfort to the enemy in a time of war, and every person associated with this outrage needs to be imprisoned at the very least. That these bastards are still collecting taxpayer dollars is an outrage.
Cite?
The Pentagon is, in a show of idiocy and absolute disconnect with reality, throwing wads of money at something that causes stupid, avoidable deaths? Huh, I’m shocked.
A spin-off of Halliburton up to know good? Colour me surprised. That’s what you get for going with the no-bid, non-union contracts.
Killed while showering, you say? History has a sense of humour, after all.
I dunno that shoddy contracting qualifies as treason. Don’t think there was any intent to aid or comfort any enemies, real or imaginary. Do think there was intent to cut corners to maximize profit. Can’t say I’d have any objections to putting the senior management up against the nearest wall.
:smack:
Well, sure, they sold the morphine intended for wounded soldiers, but its for M&M Enterprises, and everybody has a share!
A guy I know who works in Army Intelligence thinks that KBR is doing a fabulous job overall.
Well, I know I wouldn’t bet that you could kill a Green Beret with a shower, so they must be doing something right.
Very badly written story. Very short on facts.
The information I got is this:
Guy gets electrocuted. Family rightly makes a stink. Military finds out 18 people have been electrocuted. 16 or 17 of them had nothing to do with KBR or any of their work. Military also finds that a lot of electrical work is substandard and potentially dangerous and needs to be fixed.
I don’t believe the source where I heard that from 100% (of course nothing classified or even close to being classified). I would like to hear something with some hard facts before I condemn an entire corporation.
What does that mean? What do they mean by many? 1? 2? 18? I heard 1. But I would like to know for sure.
Look, I used to work on a ship. Now a ship has unique wiring requirements, but at least you have the luxury (usually) of doing the work in nice calm shore maintenance availabilities and making sure everything is done absolutely to spec.
That doesn’t eliminate electrical accidents - it just minimizes them. And I sure saw my share in five years of active duty and years of contract work afterward. I never saw anyone die, but I did have a friend get electrocuted badly enough to be briefly hospitalized.
In the field, this is likely amplified, due to the fact that you’re doing everything on the fly and working with generators and patches - which isn’t fun at all. I was stationed in Sicily at a support detachment where we were on generator ops for much of the time due to an accident that took out a frequency converter - meaning we couldn’t use 60 Hz American equipment on 50 Hz European line power. It was a nightmare keeping this working at all - it involved keeping three generators in rotation and doing hot switches between them. Quite a few times we had overvoltages that tripped breakers - more than a few we lost power and dropped communications with planes in the sky.
So this isn’t simple, and the fact that accidents happen (especially in a war zone) isn’t particularly surprising. Frankly, I’m impressed that so few soldiers have been electrocuted - seems like they’ve been driving electrical safety home. I’d like these deaths to be eliminated - but I fear that might be too much to wish for.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/world/middleeast/18contractors.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print This story has been around a while. They have been told about it and refuse to fix it. They have cut corners to make money.
And that they’re the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human beings he’s ever met in his life?
There have been 16 electrocutions in Iraq. Hey , you break a few eggs to make a lot of money.
Is he getting out of the Army soon? Looking for a new job to move into?
I saw what you did there.
Made me laugh, you did.
Or you could read my earlier post. I took a shower in a KBR inspected building this morning. And I will tomorrow. and the day after that… I think I have an interest in this story. And I’m telling you this is shitty reporting. There have been 18 people who died and the cause of death was electrocution. There is no mention of how many were anywhere near a KBR run facility. My unclassified and maybe biased sources tell me that most if not all of the others had nothing to do with KBR. All we know about is one. I would like to know about the rest before I judge everyone involved.
I had to google that. I’m glad I did!
By any chance do you work in Army Intelligence?
No one has ever accused me of any sort of intelligence.