Maggie Botes [General Manager, International Contractors Association]: "The International Contractors Association has a Code of Conduct to which all our members subscribe. It promotes integrity and professional conduct, and supports accountability for any misconduct or crime. With this said, our view is that any government or private contractor who commits a crime should be held accountable for their actions. However, legal communities and the general public should realise that herewith lays a web of unanswered and unresolved complexities. Contractor liability could potentially become a political and humanitarian nightmare to the USA and the Western world at large.

One needs to consider the following interwoven facts: (1)civilian contractors are appointed by private companies to provide support services mostly for governmental contracts in foreign countries; (2)many civilian contractors appointed by private American companies are residents of a third country; and (3) lastly these contractors work in extremely volatile and dangerous situations indirectly for the United States government. The use of contractors is a direct result of the need for support personnel when there are just not enough soldiers to provide manpower to support fighting troops. It therefore makes a lot of financial sense to have a civilian contractor pumping gas, providing food or personal safety to US officials, employees and VIPs who work in dangerous environments abroad, and rather use the country's soldiers to do what they are trained to do. Billions of dollars are saved because the government does not have the financial burden of providing long term employment, subsidized housing and other services, as well as "life-long" veteran benefits. Pay the contractors for their time, and cut them loose when the job is done. Sounds simple enough.

Contractor accountability and the enforcement thereof should ultimately rest in the judiciary, of course referring to the US judiciary — only if the contractor is an American resident. As it stands, the US law is not swayed by popular opinion, race, religion or beliefs. The same cannot be said of the Middle Eastern laws where most contractors work. Now consider this; the American contractor, who pleaded guilty in February to voluntary manslaughter for the 2008 shooting of an Afghan detainee, was sentenced in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia to five years probation and a $12,500 fine. If this was a New Zealander or Chilean contractor working on a US government contract, according to provisions of the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act the contractor would have been delivered to the authorities of Afghanistan and he would have been charged under Afghan laws, and possibly given the death penalty to be carried out within 30 days. Is it any less than only fair to hold contractors accountable under the laws of the country which they are serving? We realize herein lays complex legal issues, but the question should be asked.

The US law as it applies to soldiers working in a warzone, makes provision for PTSD (or battle fatigue as it is also known). ICA initiated a joined independent study with a Canadian researcher, Dr. Anthony Feinstein, Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, to study the effects and occurrence of PTSD amongst contractors. We presented preliminary data suggesting that a significant minority of contractors working in conflict zones, particularly Iraq, are experiencing psychological problems. These data also confirm that little is in place pre-deployment to educate contractors on the psychological risks they will face. Furthermore, very few contractors returning from a war zone will receive psychological help. These are stark figures and point to the magnitude of the problems faced by contractors and by association, the organizations that employ them. In the long term, the same applies also to the home communities they live and work in beyond the contracted job. Is it in any way "just" to ignore this and simply "pass the buck?" What are the ultimate responsibilities of the governments and private companies in Western countries that employ civilian contractors to work in conflict areas?"