Gulf War POWs push for Iraqi reparations

[unhappycamper]

Gulf War POWs push for Iraqi reparations
By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Jan 25, 2008 14:30:59 EST

U.S. veterans of the 1991 Gulf War who were captured and tortured by Iraqi forces are renewing their efforts to get President Bush to relent and allow them to pursue damages against the Iraqi government that were awarded by a federal court in 2003.

Bush vetoed the 2008 defense authorization bill Dec. 28 over a provision that, in essence, would allow former prisoners of war to sue Iraq for damages for their torture while in captivity. Bush claimed that enacting the provision would, among other things, “allow plaintiffs’ lawyers to tie up billions of dollars in Iraqi funds for reconstruction that our troops in the field depend on to maintain security gains.”

According to a Dec. 28 report in Congressional Quarterly, Bush issued his veto after lawyers for the Iraqi government threatened to withdraw $25 billion worth of assets from U.S. banks if the provision was allowed to become law.

The American POWs were granted damages by a U.S. federal district court in July 2003. But earlier that year, after signing a bill that allowed Americans to collect court-ordered damages from the frozen assets of terrorist states — a list that included Iraq at that time — Bush had confiscated what was then $1.7 billion in Iraqi assets held in private banks. He allowed the payment of two judgments, including one for so-called “human shield” hostages held by Iraq in 1990, but none for the Americans taken prisoner in the 1991 Gulf War.

Two of the former POWs, their attorneys and Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, made the case for a reversal of the Bush administration’s position at a Friday morning news conference in Washington.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/01/military_gulfwar_pows_080125w/