What exactly happened that day in Fallujah?

[maddezmom]

By Laura Parker, USA TODAY
It is one of the Iraq war's grisliest photo images: the charred bodies of American civilians strung up on a bridge in Fallujah. Four private security contractors had been shot in an ambush in March 2004 and burned in their vehicles by an angry mob.
Three years later, the Fallujah attack is at the center of a legal battle that could prompt more government oversight of security contracting companies and determine the extent of their legal liability in the war zone.

The families of the slain men still don't know what happened that day when their loved ones were consumed by insurgent violence. They are suing Blackwater USA, the men's employer, for wrongful death in the hope that their questions will be answered.

The lawsuit is the most prominent in an emerging body of litigation surrounding the secretive world of private security contractors in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As details about security operations are revealed in the court cases, pressure has intensified in Congress to regulate how armed contractors operate. The Fallujah lawsuit became part of a congressional hearing on Blackwater operations held by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., in February.

Legal experts say that more than a dozen lawsuits have been filed against contractors and that the Fallujah suit, filed in 2005, could have the biggest long-term impact on the industry.

more:http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-06-10-fallujah-deaths_N.htm?csp=34

[baldguy]

1. Those mercenaries were killed in retalliation for Abu Ghraib.