Are Contractors Above the Law?

KBR: We Can't Be Held Responsible For Soldier's Death In Our Faulty Shower

Former Halliburton Subsidiary KBR Insists It Is Not Liable for GI's Death

So what happens when the military contracting companies themselves are to blame for the deaths?

For years now, KBR and other military contractors have argued that as a matter of law, regardless of the circumstances, they are not responsible. As government contractors, they say, just like the military, they’re immune from legal suits. That’s been KBR’s defense in a series of cases over the past few years when the company has been accused of knowingly sending unarmed civilian employees into active combat zones – sometimes to their deaths.In a case I wrote about in January for The American Lawyer, KBR denied responsibility for sending an unarmed convoy of trucks down a dangerous road under active insurgent attack. In what’s come to be known as the Good Friday Massacre, in April 2004, six KBR drivers were killed and 14 were wounded. One driver is still officially missing, and presumed dead.

Now KBR could be facing many such claims. According to the Defense Dept.’s own inspector general, as of July 10, there have been 16 deaths due to faulty electrical wiring on U.S. military bases that KBR was supposed to be maintaining.
Companies like KBR rely on a range of legal defenses when accused of wrongdoing, but the gist is always the same: working for the U.S. military means they’re beyond the authority of the U.S. courts -- therefore immune from U.S. law.

That’s exactly the tack KBR appears to be taking in the case of Maseth, whose mother has sued KBR, claiming that the company knew of the danger and was responsible for fixing it, but didn’t. In other words, KBR, she asserts, could have prevented her son’s death.

KBR, which has received $20 billion in Iraq war contracts since 2003, vehemently denies this. KBR's actions "were not the cause of any of these terrible accidents," company executive Thomas Bruni told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday. An interim DOD inspector general report, obtained by The Associated Press last Tuesday, reached the same conclusion