The New York Times’ James Risen gets his hands on Pentagon and Congressional reports into mega-contractor KBR’s faulty electric wiring of Iraq buildings. Apparently 283 electrical fires that destroyed or damaged military facilities have been the result of KBR wiring.

Risen has been on this story for a while and he helpfully lays out the basics of the growing scandal. KBR and the Pentagon knew that dangerous wiring was "the most urgent noncombat safety hazard in Iraq." But the issue didn’t get national attention until this winter when Ryan D. Maseth, a green beret, was fatally electrocuted while showering in his Baghdad barracks.

There have been a lot of scandals involving Afghanistan and Iraq war contracts. What’s maybe most interesting about this one is how representative it seems of the Iraq reconstruction effort. KBR has been asked to do everything, including supply food and water. Such deep dependency on contractors makes it almost impossible for the Pentagon to just kick them out of the war zone. Risen has not identified a few bad apples here but tapped into the structural flaws of the Iraq reconstruction plan.-MB

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