You Couldn’t Find an Electrician?

At the House oversight committee’s hearing this morning on faulty wiring in Iraq, Pentagon officials keep saying that they weren’t ready to inspect electricity installed by KBR in Iraq buildings. But as Rep. Bill Bilbray (R-Calif.) just pointed out, how hard would it have been for the Army or KBR to hire an electrician?

Bilbray noted that “in every city in America there is a building inspector who checks the light switches and hands out a permit.”

“It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to know you have to give contracts to former electrical inspectors,” Bilbray told Jeffrey Parsons, exec. director of the Army Contracting Command.

Yet, both Pentagon and KBR officials are unsure what personnel installed electricity in the buildings and who, if anyone, inspected the buildings.