Suits over drivers' deaths could be tried in 2009

After much legal wrangling, lawsuits against military contractors over deadly ambushes that killed civilian truck drivers in Iraq could go to trial next year, a federal judge said Tuesday.

The suits filed by truckers and their families accuse Halliburton and a former subsidiary, KBR Inc., of knowingly sending convoys into a dangerous area where six KBR drivers were killed and several others wounded in 2004.

U.S. District Judge Gray Miller in Houston dismissed the cases in 2006, ruling that the Army plays a key role in deploying convoys and the judiciary can't second-guess battlefield decisions.

But a federal appeals court in May sent the suits back to Miller, ruling that it may be possible to resolve the lawsuits without making a "constitutionally impermissible review of wartime decision-making."

During a court hearing Tuesday, Miller told attorneys in the cases to push forward with their work so they could be ready for trial, possibly sometime in September 2009. A firm trial date would be set later.

"These cases have been on file a long time. It's time to move forward," Miller said.

David Kasanow, an attorney for Halliburton, said during the hearing he believed his client could be ready for trial by September 2009, but he would have a better idea once the initial gathering of evidence and the taking of depositions in the case began.

Kasanow and attorneys for KBR declined to comment after the hearing.

T. Scott Allen, one of the attorneys for the truckers' families, said after the hearing he was pleased that progress was finally being made in getting the suits to trial.

Allen said his first order of business would be to take the depositions of the two top KBR officials at the time of the ambushes who "sent these men to a battlefield."

The truckers' lawyers claim KBR knew it was sending the convoy into a dangerous area and could have prevented the bloodshed.

KBR has maintained its top priority remains the safety and security of all its employees.

KBR split from Halliburton last year and operates as a separate, publicly traded company. At least 110 of KBR's employees have been killed in Iraq since it started working there under a multibillion-dollar military contract in 2003.