My Friend's Son Killed in Iraq: By Contractors and U.S. Agency?

[FourScore]

My Friend's Son Killed in Iraq: By Contractors and U.S. Agency?
Greg Mitchell

Last night, I was surprised and happy to find a photograph of my new friend Cheryl Harris at the top of the New York Times' web site. She was hugging her young son, Ryan Maseth, an Army sergeant who was dressed in his uniform and cap. The were both smiling broadly. A few months later he was dead. The military told her this past January that he had foolishly carried an electrical appliance into a shower in Baghdad.

That was a lie.

It turned out the fault was an improperly grounded water pump. With a little help from me, she found out that at least 10 other military personnel have been electrocuted in Iraq in recent years. Now she is suing the contractor KBR, though there is evidence that the military and the Defense Contracting Management Agency are also to blame for being lax in its own inspections. The Times article carries word of early alerts about this, which were ignored.

Cheryl Harris is quoted by the Times today, asking, "My biggest question is really, why would KBR do a safety inspection, know about the electrical problems and not alert the troops?" The article, still on the paper's home page, is headlined, "GIs Electrocuted in Iraq Despite '04 Alert on Wiring."

Just after I reported on the Maseth electrocution for Editor & Publisher back in January -- no one else in the national media bothered to do so -- Cheryl, who lives in western Pennsylvania, contacted me wondering how she could find out how many others had met his fate. She was especially concerned because -- unmentioned in the Times story today -- she has another son in Iraq and yet another in the military serving elsewhere. I directed her to some sources and we have corresponded often ever since then.

Of course, the Bush administration aptly catches plenty of blame in the Times article for outsourcing so much work in Iraq (directing billions to the KBRs of the world) and then not providing enough oversight...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/my-friends-son-killed-in_b_100030.html

[KSinTX]

1. Why would KBR do a safety inspection ... and not alert the troops?

Things just go wrong, whereismyparty. This entire war fiasco has not just been about oil money, the enrichment of already rich Cheney cronies has been Priority 1. I am saddened to hear about your friend's son. I can only hope that you continue your reporting through E & P to keep this in the news. One story is NOT enough. God bless!

http://iraqforsale.org/halliburton.php

"Will things go wrong? Sure they willl, it's a war zone. But when they do, we'll fix it, we always have -- for 60 years, for both political parties."

- David J. Lesar, CEO

[Richard Steele]

2. K&R

[uppityperson]

3. k&r, shit, I am so sorry. My condolences.

[Octafish]

4. Dick Cheney was SecDef when they decided to privatize such "services."

Privatizing logistics is a moneymaker.

Cheney's Multi-Million Dollar Revolving Door

News: As Bush Sr.'s secretary of defense, Dick Cheney steered millions of dollars in government business to a private military contractor -- whose parent company just happened to give him a high-paying job after he left the government.

By Robert Bryce
Mother Jones
August 2, 2000

EXCERPT...

In 1992, the Pentagon, then under Cheney's direction, paid Texas-based Brown & Root Services $3.9 million to produce a classified report detailing how private companies -- like itself -- could help provide logistics for American troops in potential war zones around the world. BRS specializes in such work; from 1962 to 1972, for instance, the company worked in the former South Vietnam building roads, landing strips, harbors, and military bases. Later in 1992, the Pentagon gave the company an additional $5 million to update its report. That same year, BRS won a massive, five-year logistics contract from the US Army Corps of Engineers to work alongside American GIs in places like Zaire, Haiti, Somalia, Kosovo, the Balkans, and Saudi Arabia.

After Bill Clinton's election cost Cheney his government job, he wound up in 1995 as CEO of Halliburton Company, the Dallas-based oil services giant -- which just happens to own Brown & Root Services. Since then, Cheney has collected more than $10 million in salary and stock payments from the company. In addition, he is currently the company's largest individual shareholder, holding stock and options worth another $40 million. Those holdings have undoubtedly been made more valuable by the ever-more lucrative contracts BRS continues to score with the Pentagon.

Between 1992 and 1999, the Pentagon paid BRS more than $1.2 billion for its work in trouble spots around the globe. In May of 1999, the US Army Corps of Engineers re-enlisted the company's help in the Balkans, giving it a new five-year contract worth $731 million.

CONTINUED...

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2000/08/cheney.html

One who privatizes war is a warmonger.

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. That is so sad :^(