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House panel calls for Iraq wiring probe

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is widening its investigation into shoddy electrical work at military bases in Iraq that led to the death or injury of at least 12 service members and contractors.

New information shows that there were more than 280 electrical fires at facilities managed by logistics giant KBR within a five-month period from August 2006 through January 2007.

“The information the committee has received raises serious questions about electrical safety in Iraq,” Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., wrote to Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday.

“It appears that there are significant deficiencies in electrical systems throughout Iraq, that these deficiencies present an ongoing threat to our troops, and that despite hundreds of electrical fires, the department and KBR have done little to address the widespread safety risk,” Waxman, the committee chairman, wrote.

Waxman wants Defense to turn over documents related to the investigations of the fires and the deaths or injuries suffered by soldiers and contractors.

Citing an internal February 2007 report from the Defense Contract Management Agency, Waxman said that improper insulation, substandard equipment and heavy usage led to the fires at the KBR facilities. DCMA considered the electrical problems a “primary safety threat theaterwide,” Waxman wrote in the letter.

Five Senate Democrats also raised objections to Gates about KBR’s electrical work. Sens. Byron Dorgan, N.D., Bob Casey, Pa., Maria Cantwell, Wash., Sheldon Whitehouse, R.I., and Amy Klobuchar, Minn., called on Gates to suspend KBR’s contracts for electrical work and to launch an independent inspection of KBR’s work.

KBR should be replaced by “people who know what they are doing and whose work won’t put the lives of American soldiers at risk,” Dorgan said in a statement.