Judge reaffirms: electrocution case against KBR will proceed

By Stephen C. Webster

A federal judge has denied an appeal reuqest by Kellog, Brown & Root to appeal over a lawsuit which accuses the company of negligent homocide in the electrocution death of a U.S. soldier.

“KBR filed a motion with U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fischer asking her to amend a March order that will allow the case to move forward; the order prevented an appeal during the course of the case,” reported the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “The contractor wanted her to change that order to allow it to appeal her decision on a motion for dismissal to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.”

“[A]n Army criminal investigator says the manner of death for Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, 24, has been changed from accidental to negligent homicide because the contractor failed to ensure that ‘qualified electricians and plumbers’ worked on the barracks where Maseth died,” reported the Associated Press in January.

“Maseth, 24, of Shaler, Pa., outside Pittsburgh, was electrocuted on Jan. 2 when an improperly grounded electric water pump short-circuited and flowed through the pipes,” reported ABC in March 2008. “Since the coiled hose was touching his arm, he was hit with an electrical jolt and went into cardiac arrest and died.”

On July 1, New York Times Investigative Reporter James Risen, author of the 2006 book “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration,” took up the subject. According to Risen, General David Petraeus stated to Congress that 13 Americans had been electrocuted since the invasion of Iraq: 12 soldiers and one contractor.

As recently as July 11, KBR Inc. electricians told a Senate panel tasked to investigate the deaths that their employer used inexperienced, non-English speaking workers to install electrical systems. Many experienced contractors, they claimed, were dismissed after raising cautions over the work.

“Time and again we heard, `This is not the states, OSHA doesn’t apply here. If you don’t like it you can go home,’” said Debbie Crawford, a journeyman electrician with 30 years experience, in a report by the AP.

In a follow-up report by James Risen in the New York Times on July 18 states that the problem is far worse than General Petraeus stated, and the military has known about the systemic problems since 2004.

KBR knowingly performed substandard electrical work in Iraq and threatened workers who “made a lot of noise” about shoddy construction and maintenance, according to ex-KBR electrician Debbie Crawford.

Crawford, who last year testified before a Senate panel investigating that death, in March told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow that “[i]t was put up or shut up… People who pushed the issue and made a lot of noise were threatened to be transferred into other more hostile work environments…or they were sent home.”

U.S. troops in Iraq suffered electrical shocks about every three days in a two-year period, according to an internal Defense Contract Management Agency report obtained by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, a McClatchy newspaper — or 231 incidents in all, from shoddy KBR workmanship.

The 45-page document — a high-level request for corrective action generated last fall — found that Texas-based military contractor KBR Inc. failed to properly ground and bond its electrical systems, which contributed to soldiers “receiving shocks in KBR-maintained facilities on average once every three days since data was available in Sept. 2006,” a release said.

KBR was spun off from Halliburton after a rash of negative press reports surrounding overbilling in 2007. Halliburton was run by former Vice President Dick Cheney prior to his taking office in the White House in 2001.