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WASHINGTON — A Pentagon safety expert told senior Defense Department officials earlier this year that their failure to fix widespread electrical hazards on U.S. bases in Iraq could leave the Pentagon liable for electrocutions of American soldiers, according to internal e-mails released Friday.

In an e-mail message from May 5, a safety official at the Defense Contract Management Agency, the Pentagon organization in charge of supervising defense contractors in Iraq, noted that the agency had failed to act after its own comprehensive safety survey in February 2007 found widespread electrical problems at U.S. bases that had led to a series of deaths, injuries and fires.

But top DCMA officials responded to the assertion by saying that they had never heard of the safety survey, indicating that they had no knowledge of the longstanding electrical problems.

In January, 11 months after the comprehensive safety review, Staff Sgt. Ryan D. Maseth, a Green Beret, was electrocuted while taking a shower at his base in Baghdad, apparently because of poorly grounded electrical work in the building. A subsequent Pentagon review of its records found that at least 13 Americans had been electrocuted in Iraq since the war began in 2003.

The failure by Pentagon contracting officials to act on the 2007 safety report, in the wake of Maseth's death, raised troubling questions, James O'Kane, the contract safety specialist with the DCMA, wrote in the e-mail message.

Referring to the safety survey and their own failure to act upon it, O'Kane wrote, "I am concerned that electrical issues were identified; lack of action with regard to any correction action, or increased surveillance, results in direct liability issues for our agency as well as individuals who were briefed regarding this finding."

The message was sent to top DCMA officials just as Congress was beginning to ask questions about electrical problems in Iraq following Maseth's death.

As a result, O'Kane's correspondence about the safety survey quickly went up the chain of command within DCMA. But in response, one DCMA official asked in another e-mail message, "What report?"

The Pentagon e-mail traffic was released Friday by Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. Waxman said he sent the letter in response to an article in The New York Times on Friday disclosing that electrical problems on American bases in Iraq were far more widespread than previously believed.

Internal Pentagon documents obtained by the Times revealed that shoddy electrical work by outside contractors had caused more dangerous conditions for U.S. troops than publicly acknowledged by the Pentagon. Hundreds of electrical fires have occurred on American bases, while many more soldiers have been killed or injured by fires or shocks than was known, the internal documents showed.

KBR, the Houston-based company that is the Pentagon's largest contractor in Iraq, is responsible for most basic services provided to U.S. troops there, including building maintenance.