U.S. contractors in Iraq allege abuses

Anyone who's been there says Iraq is a brutal, deadly place. So why do the men blame Custer Battles?

"Simply, they're negligent," says Colling. "[Just] throwing people out there and then forcing us to use these brutal tactics. They're responsible, absolutely."

Custer Battles declined to be interviewed on camera. The CEO calls the allegations "completely baseless and without merit" and says there's "no evidence" to support them. He adds that the Kurds worked for a subcontractor, not Custer Battles.

The company provided conflicting information about the crushed car but arranged for NBC News to talk to the man who who oversaw the mission on Nov. 8, 2004.  Shawn Greene, who still works for Custer Battles in Iraq, spoke by phone with NBC News. He acknowledges that during the mission a pickup truck did roll over the bumper and taillight area of a sedan, which he says refused to move out of the way. Greene denies anyone was injured in the incident.

"There were no children in that vehicle," he insists.

As the leader of the mission, Greene ordered the lead driver to push the vehicle since there had been attacks against convoys in that area in the past. 

"He came directly in front of my lead vehicle," says Greene. "That is how that car got in our path. And why he had to be pushed out the way when he refused to move. It wasn't that we went out of our way in any way looking for a car to hit. We don't do that."

But because of the dangers on Iraqi roads, Greene says employees of Custer Battles do sometimes push Iraqi civilian vehicles out of their way if they refuse to move. 

"Usually, you know, we give them a tap at about 20 miles an hour or so," he says.

The company also arranged for a phone conversation with its country manager in Iraq, Paul Christopher. The company points out that Christopher is a retired lieutenant colonel who authored a book on the ethics of war and ran the philosophy program at West Point. Christopher maintains the Nov. 8 mission was the only case where a civilian car was damaged by the company in Iraq.

The company provided a photo to NBC News, which it says is the car in question, to prove that the damage was not that severe. In the photo, the passenger compartment of the car seems to be intact.

Craun, Colling and Hough say it's not the same car.

As for the incidents of allegedly wild shooting, Greene also disputes that any innocent Iraqis were killed by gunfire during the mission, although he agrees there were warning shots fired on several legs of the mission.

Likewise, Christopher insists "there has absolutely never been a case of anyone being hurt or killed to my knowledge, except for people who were actively engaged in shooting at us first."

Certainly the company does experience genuine combat conditions. In fact, on one leg of the November mission, the convoy came under a serious attack by Iraqi insurgents. First, the pickup truck driven by Hough was struck by an improvised explosive device, or IED, which killed one of the Iraqi Kurd guards. Then the men fought a pitched firefight against insurgents until the U.S. military arrived.

However, Custer Battles claims all these men are "disgruntled" former employees, who believe the company still owes them money. It says Hough was fired and that Craun once confided to a colleague that he knew the company didn't really kill any children.

So why are these men going public with these allegations now? They say because they care about American soldiers and about winning the war.

"If we continue to let this happen, those people will hate us even more than they already do," says Craun.

And they say that only makes Iraq more dangerous for American soldiers.

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