NYTimes cover story on accidental electricutions in Iraq

[mucifer]

Electrical Risks at Bases in Iraq Worse Than Previously Said

By JAMES RISEN
Published: July 18, 2008

WASHINGTON — Shoddy electrical work by private contractors on United States military bases in Iraq is widespread and dangerous, causing more deaths and injuries from fires and shocks than the Pentagon has acknowledged, according to internal Army documents.
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During just one six-month period — August 2006 through January 2007 — at least 283 electrical fires destroyed or damaged American military facilities in Iraq, including the military’s largest dining hall in the country, documents obtained by The New York Times show. Two soldiers died in an electrical fire at their base near Tikrit in 2006, the records note, while another was injured while jumping from a burning guard tower in May 2007.

And while the Pentagon has previously reported that 13 Americans have been electrocuted in Iraq, many more have been injured, some seriously, by shocks, according to the documents...


more at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/world/middleeast/18contractors.html?hp

[hlthe2b]

1. Somewhere Ben Franklin (discoverer of electical "grounding")

is rolling in his grave....I wince that greed and stupidity seemingly knows no bounds in this administation and its cronies.

[Hekate]

2. If this had been done by enlisted personnel they'd have been court-martialed for gross negligence

Instead we get Halliburton and KBR operating entirely beyond any laws or consequences in a morass of corruption that beggars belief.

Hekate

[aquart]

3. Oh, look. The NYT noticed.

We've known how long?

[zbdent]

4. It's amazing how many of those "accidental electrocutions" left burn marks

on the nipples of the accident victims ... and in the shape of jumper cable clamps ...