Soldier electrocuted in Iraq by KBR-installed water pump

Contractors employed by Kellogg, Brown & Root -- under the umbrella of supercontractor Halliburton--are paid upwards of $100,000 annually to install and maintain equipment on US bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. But such a generous sum doesn't compel all of those contractors to pay attention to their work, to pay "attention to detail," in military parlance. An article in the NY Times today reminds us of one deadly failure on the part of KBR contractors to work meticulously and ensure quality control -- the article describes the death of Special Forces Staff Sgt. Ryan D. Maseth, who was electrocuted in 2008 while taking a shower. The water pump feeding into his shower container was not properly grounded, a careless oversight that KBR refuses -- as the article shows -- to assume responsibility for.

I am not surprised. When I was in Iraq in 2004 and 2005, I was jolted daily by my own door handle every time I returned from the shower. The generator next to my living container -- big enough to power an entire apartment building -- was not properly grounded, and my wet feet provided the perfect conduit between the electrically charged dirt beneath my feet and the metal doorhandle. Lucky for me, the jolt was just enough to seize up my muscles, make me clench my jaw. After awhile it became a joke between my roommate and me. We'd call our friends over as they ambled back to their containers from the shower, then we'd trick them into grabbing the doorhandle. It was hilarious. It could have been deadly. When we finally got a KBR contractor to bring his Turkish crew over to investigate the problem, he told us as much. "You guys are lucky," he said, "this much current could fry you."

It took us more than weeks to get the KBR contractor to fix our generator, despite constant harassment and the obvious danger posed by the situation.

In the aftermath of an investigatory commission's findings on the Maseth accident, a KBR spokeswoman has issued a statement denying any responsibility on KBR's part. "The military never directed KBR to repair, upgrade or improve the grounding system in the building in which Maseth resided," wrote KBR's Heather Browne, "nor was KBR directed to perform any preventative maintenance at this facility." The amount of money raked in by KBR and other Halliburton contractors during the Iraq war is legend, not to mention obscene. One would expect any contractor paid such a gross fee to offer all necessary follow-up services -- even if those also implied a fee. But, as Ms. Browne's comments reveal, KBR is more than happy to blame the US military for its own shortcomings. It's as if she were to say, "It's the military's fault that they didn't have enough generator expertise to know to tell us that we needed to come and do preventative maintenance." How about a little follow-up on your services, KBR? And why didn't you ground it right the first time?

No accountability is a popular escape mechanism for contractors and politicians alike these days. Who will call these people to account?