HOUSTON—After much legal wrangling, lawsuits against military contractors over deadly ambushes that killed civilian truck drivers in Iraq could go to trial next year, a federal judge said Tuesday.

The suits filed by truckers and their families accuse Halliburton and a former subsidiary, KBR Inc., of knowingly sending convoys into a dangerous area where six KBR drivers were killed and several others wounded in 2004.

U.S. District Judge Gray Miller in Houston dismissed the cases in 2006, ruling that the Army plays a key role in deploying convoys and the judiciary can’t second-guess battlefield decisions.

But a federal appeals court in May sent the suits back to Miller, ruling that it may be possible to resolve the lawsuits without making a “constitutionally impermissible review of wartime decision-making.”

During a court hearing Tuesday, Miller told attorneys in the cases to push forward with their work so they could be ready for trial, possibly sometime in September 2009. A firm trial date would be set later.

“These cases have been on file a long time. It’s time to move forward,” Miller said.

David Kasanow, an attorney for Halliburton, said during the hearing he believed his client could be ready for trial by September 2009, but he would have a better idea once the initial gathering of evidence and the taking of depositions in the case began.

Kasanow and attorneys for KBR declined to comment after the hearing.