Free Republic

The grisly details of the murder and dismemberment of four U.S. citizen contractors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah have found their way onto U.S. soil in a dispute that may reach the Supreme Court. In the case, the estates of the four late contractors filed suit against Blackwater Security, a company with whom the decedents contracted to perform military escort services. The estates attribute the contractors' deaths to the allegedly negligent and deceitful actions of the contracting companies, asserting claims of common-law fraud and wrongful death under North Carolina law. Blackwater, however, contends that the state law claims are...

WASHINGTON -- After denying it numerous times, the Pentagon said Wednesday that a North Carolina company provided armed security guards in Iraq under a subcontract buried so deeply the government couldn't find it. The secretary of the Army told two Democratic lawmakers in a letter that the Blackwater USA contract was part of a huge military support operation by run by Halliburton subsidiary KBR. The news came during a day of close scrutiny for Blackwater. The families of four Blackwater guards whose bodies were burned and dragged through the streets by a mob in Iraq told Congress on Wednesday that...