At least 5 soldiers in Iraq have died from being electrocuted in the shower.
The generators they use to pump water are not properly grounded, sending a dangerous electrical spark into the soldiers.
There are so many things wrong with this that I just want to scream, and I didn't hear about it until recently.
High on the list of anger issues, if we knew enough to send warnings out to the troops saying, "be careful of the showers, they may electrocute you." why didn't we fix them.
Some people make a big deal about KBR as the company hired to run our camps. They were not the ones that installed the faulty generators, nor did they buy them and charge Uncle Sam ridiculously large fees for them.
They are, however, responsible for fixing this problem before any more soldiers are killed.
When the soldier died, why did we send a message to the family that they died, "with an electrical device in the shower." That sounds like a suicide or a undignified way to die. Instead the soldier was just cleaning up when tragedy hit. Were we trying to avoid a lawsuit?
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote: "I expected that if I lost one of my sons [in the war], it would be due to an [improvised explosive device] or firefight," Maseth's mother, Cheryl Harris, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "I never expected to hear he would be electrocuted, that something so senseless happened to him."
Yeah, no kidding. How are you supposed to take that news? How do you not hate the government for the rest of your life?
Posts: 1711 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think if your son/husband/brother/father was the first person to die that way and that you were given an honest account, you might come to terms with it.
OTOH, finding out, after being given a dishonest account and finding out that this was the twelfth such preventable death...
just might make somebody bitter. (if that's a politically safe term to use any more)
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Like the previous few things that have happened over there that have shocked most people, this doesn't surprise me. What surprises me is that we apparently didn't overpay to have our soldiers electrocuted to death. I'm pretty damned bitter, and despite my weariness on this topic, I'm the angriest I've been in awhile.
And friggin Congress had better get off their butts and do something about it this time. I'm sick to death of these things being drummed up and then nothing ever happens about it. Can't we at least take care of the preventable deaths?
quote:In a January 21 memo responding to questions from Maseth's family, the Army's criminal investigations division said the Chinese-made pump was acquired before KBR took over maintenance of the building and did not meet U.S. safety standards.
Too many people are dying and being hurt all over the country because of Chinese made crap. I don't blame the Chinese, they do what they do because it's profitable, and they either don't know or don't care about the consequences. We've been through that phase too. I blame the companies that want so much to make a profit and make the low bid that they turn over our lives to these trinkets of death.
We need to get back to basics. Make sure the food is safe, the water is safe, the things we use in our every day life are safe. Do we need a 21st century Upton Sinclair to write the unsafe Chinese products version of "The Jungle"?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote: The lawsuit alleges that KBR knew the electrical supply to the building's water tank bypassed the main disconnect, two unprotected splices were linked to the supply line, and the water tanks were not grounded. In addition, it says, "KBR was aware that the water pump servicing the facility was manufactured by a Chinese company for sale to countries outside the United States because it failed to meet applicable U.S. safety standards."
I know its fashionable to rail on Chinese companies these days, but its not applicable when its actually a case of RTFM inside KBR.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:The lawsuit alleges that KBR knew the electrical supply to the building's water tank bypassed the main disconnect, two unprotected splices were linked to the supply line, and the water tanks were not grounded. In addition, it says, "KBR was aware that the water pump servicing the facility was manufactured by a Chinese company for sale to countries outside the United States because it failed to meet applicable U.S. safety standards."
kbr -- supporting those troops so hard they don't even know what hit them
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
It amazes me that when Eisenhower made his comments about the military/industrial complex being a serious problem, nobody listened. Clearly the Republican leadership are nothing but a bunch of profiteeers, wanting to profit from the ignorance of others, else why would they support the current administration? Eisenhower is a 'good' a Republican as you can find, Military record, pro-defense...yet he clearly says that the military/industrial complex is something we need to be on guard against. Do any Republicans ever pay attention to Eisenhower's comments? Why not?
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Personal Anecdote time about the Military Industrial Complex:
A year ago I was offered a job for an unknown little member of that MIC. They sold cables and "anything else" to the government.
There sales pitch was not better product or best price or service excellence. Their sales pitch was that the CEO was a woman of Native American descent. Since a % of all govt business needs to go to minorities and women run companies, they offered government agencies the ability to fulfill that minimum quickly.
The fact that the only woman working there besides the CEO (married to the President who actually ran the company)were the receptionists and the sales asst. and the only minorities I saw were, 1 salesman in an office of about 30 people did not seem to matter.
They promised that if I worked like a dog for 60 hours a week, and used every underhanded trick they could think of to get the business, I'd be making 6 figures a year.
There biggest client--the US Military.
Even then they were finding new products to push into Iraq.
quote: At least 5 soldiers in Iraq have died from being electrocuted in the shower.
The article does not say this, it just states that 5 soldiers died by electrocution. The article is kind of misleading in it's attempt to solely blame KBR for all of the deaths, and then linking KBR to Haliburton and then to Cheney really shows the bias. This article has slightly, but not much, more information about it. Hidden Danger: Soldiers Dying From Electrocution There aren't details about how the other 11 servicemembers (not just army) died. KBR should rightfully be sued in this case but I don't know if they can be blamed for all of the cases. We don't really know what caused the other 11 electrocutions.
Posts: 1918 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:"The safety and security of all employees remains KBR's priority and we remain committed to pledging our full cooperation with the agencies involved in investigating this matter."
So, does this mean the US Marines are KBR employees, or that since there was a slight risk to KBR employees, they decided not to fix the problem and the Marines just had to take it.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Eh, I saw All My Sons when I was in college. The problem of military profiteering is an old one.
quote: I don't blame the Chinese, they do what they do because it's profitable
Why not?
I don't see that dying from various substandard conditions is any less heroic than getting shot. It's a risk we take when we leave America and go out into the real world.
I was bitter for a while wondering if my son had died because we were overseas, but I later learned if we'd been in America, we would have been encouraged to have an abortion. I mean, his life was really short, and ultimately very expensive for the government, but well, I don't know.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Mmm. When you put 150k young people into a low-infrastructure area, accidents are going to happen. Some of them are going to be really stupid, preventable accidents. I bet someone died in Iraq of just plain slipping on the soap, too. Still, five does seem a little excessively stupid.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I can only ask, who designed this shower system? And, haven't they ever heard of PVC pipe. One small section of pvc pipe in the line would be sufficient to isolate the shower from the water systems. Or, better yet, why not just ground the water pumps, it's not that hard.
Posts: 803 | Registered: May 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally from Mucus: I know its fashionable to rail on Chinese companies these days, but its not applicable when its actually a case of RTFM inside KBR.
I didn't jump on the bandwagon because it was fashionable. But I'd point you to a paragraph you apparently missed in my post, because it addresses what you're saying:
quote:Too many people are dying and being hurt all over the country because of Chinese made crap. I don't blame the Chinese, they do what they do because it's profitable, and they either don't know or don't care about the consequences. We've been through that phase too. I blame the companies that want so much to make a profit and make the low bid that they turn over our lives to these trinkets of death.
Like I said, I don't blame China, I blame the companies that use their crap negligently to kill us. It's even worse in this case as we apparently knew ahead of time that this model was substandard and they still used it. There's no denying that China's health and safety standards for their products is abysmal, I really don't know what point you're trying to make here.
quote:Originally posted by pooka: Why not?
I'm mad at them, but I don't blame them. They make a product, they don't force it down our throats. The ones are blame are the companies who all use China as their manufacturer without checking to make sure that the stuff they sell their consumers won't KILL their consumers. They don't care, they just want to get to the bottom line. If these companies really care, they'd make sure that these products are safe, they'd demand that Chinese manufacturers put safety standards in place, or they'd take their business elsewhere. You really think Chinese companies wouldn't step up to the plate at the threat of moving to other factories, say in Vietnam, Mexico or South Korea? Of course they would. America fuels their economic growth, and their cheap products helps keep our consumer driven economy going too. It's a two way street though, they get billions of dollars in our money, but there's no law forcing us to consume what they make, if they are our dollars, we get to demand that they make a quality product or we take our business elsewhere. Until companies make those demands, I blame the companies, and not the Chinese.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
My point, and I'll try to stay succinct this time, is that the Chinese angle is a red herring this time. No Chinese company actually did anything wrong this time. They built a part, they sold it as meeting a foreign specification, an American company bought it to save a few bucks, were actually warned about it, and in a stunning display of incompetence ignored it. End of story.
In fact, its not even apparent to me that the quality of the pump is even really a factor in the deaths, the emphasis in the two reports is on the lack of *grounding* by the people that installed the pump.
In short, none of what you're saying is necessarily wrong. What I'm objecting to is that you're essentially shoe-horning it (the Chinese angle) into a mostly unrelated discussion when the real issue is the incompetence of the people that are responsible.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:No Chinese company actually did anything wrong this time. They built a part, they sold it as meeting a foreign specification, an American company bought it to save a few bucks, were actually warned about it, and in a stunning display of incompetence ignored it. End of story.
I'm not disputing that, and haven't from the start. And we don't know all the details yet. It may or may not be a contributing factor, and a such is fair game for discussion at the moment I think. But regardless, my ire isn't directed at the Chinese manufacturers, it's at the company that fouled up this project, just like yours.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
