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Blackwater
After years of high-stakes legal wrangling, a lawsuit
stemming from the gruesome deaths of four U.S. contractors in
Iraq is moving behind closed doors in an action seen as an important
precedent for the booming private security industry.
The suit, for wrongful death and fraud, was filed in January 2005
against Blackwater Security Consulting, one of scores of companies now
fielding close to 130,000 civilians who work alongside the U.S. military
in Iraq. Generally their contracts stipulate the contractors assume all
risks -- injury, death, disability -- and waive their right to sue.
The risks are considerable: the latest government figures say 916
civilian contractors have been killed from the beginning of the war in
Iraq in March, 2003 to April 30, 2007.
Despite the risks, security companies say there is no shortage of
applicants attracted by high pay and a taste for adventure.
Contractors -- Americans, Iraqis and nationals from more than 30 other
countries -- perform jobs from guarding senior U.S. officials to
translating, cooking meals, driving trucks, cleaning toilets and
servicing weapons systems and computers.
Contract language is explicit and in the case of Blackwater, it releases
the company from "any liability whatsoever" even if it is "the result of
negligence, gross negligence, omissions or failure to guard or warn
against dangerous conditions."
The suit was brought by the families of four civilian contractors shot
in March 2004 by Iraqi insurgents, who burned their bodies and hung the
charred remains from a bridge across the Euphrates river in the city of
Falluja.
Televised images of the scene, with jubilant Iraqis shaking their fists
in triumph, shocked the U.S. and prompted an all-out military assault on
the city.
In an unusual decision last week, James Fox, a senior district court
judge in North Carolina, where Blackwater is based, ordered the case out
of the courts and into arbitration.
SECRET PROCESS
Lawyers for both sides declined comment on the move but Blackwater
spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell confirmed that hearings would begin soon under
the rules of the American Arbitration Association, a private group whose
proceedings are confidential and its rulings binding.
"This is a very important decision," said Jeffrey Addicott, a retired
Special Forces lawyer and director of the Center for Terrorism Law at
St. Mary's University in San Antonio. "It is a recognition that the
contract is iron-clad and that its terms absolve the company of
liability. In future cases, this will be cited as a precedent."
But some legal experts see the removal of the Fallujah case from the
judicial process as an ominous development.
"This may be a victory for the Blackwater legal team but it is a defeat
for the principle of transparency," said Eugene Fidell, an expert on
military law and president of the non-profit National Institute of
Military Justice.
"This means that the shadow army (of contractors) will slip even further
into the shadows."
Both sides have engaged high-level legal teams.
When lawyers for the families of the four contractors -- Stephen (Scott)
Helveston, Mike Teague, Jerko Zovko and Wesley Batalona -- first brought
the case, they said it was meant to send a message to all contractor
companies in Iraq.
The suit alleged that Blackwater broke explicit terms of its contract
with the men by sending them to escort a food convoy in unarmored cars,
without heavy machine guns, proper briefings, advance notice or
pre-mission reconnaissance, in teams that were understaffed and lacked
even a map.
Since the case began making its slow way through the legal system and
eventually to arbitration, the number of contractors working alongside
the U.S. military in Iraq has increased by an estimated 30,000 and some
experts say the rapid growth has tempted companies to cut corners.
"Standards have been slipping, not for all but for some, in training and
the quality of staff," said Robert Young Pelton, author of the book
"Licensed to Kill," on the private security industry drawn from three
years of travel through conflict zones. |
