Family of Truckdriver Killed in Iraq Sues Halliburton For Wrongful Death

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Family of Truckdriver Killed in Iraq Sues Halliburton For Wrongful Death

The mother and daughter of an American truck driver killed in Iraq filed a federal lawsuit yesterday against Halliburton, the primary contractor providing logistical support to the military in Iraq. The two women are seeking redress for the wrongful death of Tony Johnson, a truck driver from Riverside, California, who was killed almost one year ago near Baghdad International Airport. This is the first of what are expected to be several lawsuits by truck drivers and their families against the Houston-based company. Johnson was one of 19 truck drivers carrying fuel for the United States military from Camp Anaconda to the airport. The convoy drove straight into a major gun battle on April 9, 2004, on what has become the world's most dangerous highway. Two hours later six drivers had died, one was kidnapped and one had disappeared. Only 11 made it to their destination alive that day - the first anniversary of the United States defeat of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. We are joined on the phone by Pratap Chatterjee - the Executive Director of CorpWatch.org and author of the book "Iraq Inc.: A Profitable Occupation."

PRATAP CHATTERJEE: Well, the lawsuit, which was filed by a firm in Orange County, California, is basically stating that the company intentionally placed these workers in harm's way. In fact, it goes further than that. It says that they were a decoy to ensure that if there was an attack, one of two convoys carrying fuel would be able to make it through, and what's most bizarre about this is that the second convoy made it through, whereas the Hamill convoy – this convoy is often called a Hamill convoy because Thomas Hamill was the leader of the convoy. Listeners may recall that he was kidnapped very dramatically and shown on video, and then escaped three weeks later and wrote a book about his exploits. Well, almost every other driver who made it through and the seven families that were killed are not happy with Halliburton. And one of the reasons they're not happy is the fact that they were sent on this trip without adequate preparation. In fact, many of them -- most of them had not traveled this route and weren't really sure exactly where they were going. And they were traveling -- they were driving unarmed military vehicles, as opposed to civilian trucks, and then finally that the military didn't provide them with adequate protection. Normally the military is supposed to provide at least one soldier per two trucks, and they only had six out of a minimum ten that should have been supplied. Well, then -- and what's most ironic is once they got to the Baghdad International Airport where they were delivering the fuel, the people in the airport said we don't even need this fuel. And it's symptomatic of either the chaos in Iraq or, you know, the bureaucratic and incompetent bungling of a lot of the logistical support that Halliburton’s doing. And you have to wonder how much of each -- how much it's intentional and badly managed or how much of it is chaos.

Emphasis mine.

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1. Halliburton took unnecessary risks here, families have a good case.