Civilian contractor may be charged for Predator fire
A civilian contractor who is an Air Force mechanic, based in Las Vegas, is being held at an airbase in Iraq pending charges regarding a fire in a Predator drone. The Las Vegas Sun reports that Justin Price, 29, is being charged under the UCMJ.
The article says
Price was supposed to return home from Ali Air Base on Saturday, completing his 120-day rotation working on the unmanned aircraft as an employee of Battlespace Flight Services in Las Vegas. It is contracted to maintain the Predator, operated from Creech Air Force Base, north of Las Vegas.
This is the issue raised by Major Ricou Heaton in her 2004 academic paper, Civilians at War. She argues that those civilians who operate and maintain battlefield systems, such as UAVs, are “remote combatants”. I don’t know the details of this particular case with Price but generally speaking, I think Heaton has a sound argument for the new battlefield.
