Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 10. januar 2005 / Time Line January 10, 2005
Version 3.59. Januar 2005, 11. Januar 2005
01/10/2005
Iraq contractor suit opens doors
By Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20050109-071251-3780r
WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- The families of four defense
contractors killed last year in Iraq are suing their employer,
claiming the company, in an effort to increase profits, did not
provide them with armored vehicles and other equipment as had been
promised.
"The (company's) motivation was basically greed," family attorney
Dan Callahan told United Press International. "They saved $1.5
million by not buying those (armored) vehicles."
The complaint -- filed in a Raleigh, N.C., court last week --
alleges that Blackwater Security Consulting LLC sent the men into
hostile territory in unarmored vehicles with only light weapons and
without even a map, contrary to promises in the men's
contracts.
Repeated telephone messages at the company's Moyock, N.C.,
headquarters requesting comment went unanswered.
The suit seeks unspecified damages for wrongful death and experts
warn it could set off a flood of litigation against private
military contractors, whose unprecedented role in the Iraq conflict
is opening unexplored legal territory.
Scott Helvenston, Mike Teague, Jerry Zovko, and Wesley Batalona
were killed March 31, 2004, by insurgents who attacked a convoy
moving through the center of Fallujah, which was a hotbed of
insurgent activity. The men's bodies were burned and beaten, and
two of them were hanged from a bridge in the town.
Estimates vary on the number of private military contractors in
Iraq, depending on which groups of workers are included.
"No one knows for sure how many are there," said David Isenberg of
the British American Security information Council.
In a report on military contractors he wrote last year, Isenberg
estimated that there were perhaps 6,000 westerners doing armed
security work of the same kind as the four men killed in
Fallujah.
Yet as many as 170 have been killed, according to Larry Korb, a
Reagan-era defense official and now a scholar at the Center for
American Progress.
The death toll, Korb added, means that the lawsuit is a potential
"Pandora's box" for the industry. "There could be a slew of similar
lawsuits," he said.
Isenberg agreed: "If these allegations are true, Blackwater is
guilty of the most egregious conduct. But I'm sure they are not the
worst security contractor operating in Iraq. My intuition is there
are a great many more stories like this out there, and there is a
good likelihood more cases will follow if this one makes any
progress."
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