- WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration
is quietly piling up victories in a legal battle to block payments to 17
U.S. combat veterans who were captured and tortured in the first Gulf War
and won a suit against Iraq for nearly a billion dollars.
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- The former POWs -- whipped, beaten, burned, electrically
shocked and starved by their Iraqi captors in 1991 -- say they are baffled
by the administration's refusal to let them collect any of the assets of
Iraq now under U.S. control, and by the Justice Department's efforts to
overturn a federal court decision upholding their claims to compensation.
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- "I don't understand why they want to see this case
go away," said Lt. Col. Dave Storr of Spokane, Wash., one of the POWs
who today is an airline pilot and serves in the Air National Guard.
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- "My country can be mistaken," Storr said, "but
I'll still serve it and love it. I'm proud to wear the uniform, no matter
what comes."
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- In court filings, the government asserts sweeping presidential
power to block the claims because of the "weighty foreign policy interests
at stake."
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- It does not dispute details of the POWs' suffering.
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- "The United States government fully recognizes the
brutal actions to which the plaintiffs here were subjected as they heroically
served their country and made sacrifices during the Gulf War in 1991,"
the Justice Department acknowledges. "Plaintiffs' suffering at the
hands of the former Iraqi government officials cannot be excused or forgotten.
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- "Nevertheless, the political branches of our government
have decided that, now that the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein has
been removed from power, U.S. sanctions against Iraq based on its support
of terrorism must be removed."
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- Navy Lt. Jeffrey Zaun of Cherry Hill was navigator aboard
an A-6 Intruder on Jan. 17, 1991, when it was downed by an Iraqi missile.
He was captured, and when he refused to provide information to interrogators
about his mission and the location of U.S. forces, he was repeatedly karate-chopped
in the throat. Kept for weeks in a darkened cell, he was beaten and twice
subjected to mock executions. He was held 46 days.
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- Zaun, today a financial analyst for Standard & Poors
and a commander in the Naval Reserve, said he isn't surprised that the
Bush administration opposes the former POWs' bid for compensation, given
what he termed the administration's aversion to tort claims. But they should
get over it, he said.
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- "I didn't want to deploy, either, but when they
said to go I went," Zaun said. "Sometimes it's necessary to get
in these people's faces and take their money. It's a great way to hurt
the folks who financed bad guys."
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- The former POWs launched their lawsuit in April 2002
under a 1996 law that allows terrorist nations, so designated by the State
Department, to be sued for personal injuries to U.S. nationals, including
prisoners of war. They argued that they were tortured in violation of the
Geneva Conventions' ban on mistreatment of POWs.
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- Their position was strengthened last November when Congress
passed and Bush signed into law a terrorism insurance bill allowing Americans
to collect court-ordered compensatory damages from frozen assets of terrorist
states.
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- U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts ordered Iraq on July
7 -- three months after the fall of Saddam's regime -- to pay the 17 former
POWs and their families $653 million in compensatory damages and $306 million
in punitive damages for torturing the men. Roberts ordered a temporary
freeze on $653 million in Iraqi assets then held in the Federal Reserve
Bank of New York, as a source of funds for the settlement.
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- At that point the Justice Department stepped in, asking
the judge to throw out the judgment against Iraq.
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- The government's attorneys quoted Ambassador L. Paul
Bremer 3rd, the presidential envoy to Iraq: "Restricting these funds
as a result of this litigation would affect adversely the ability of the
United States to achieve security and stability in the region, would compromise
the safety of U.S. forces and Iraqi civilians, and would be harmful to
U.S. national security interests."
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- On July 30, Roberts ruled that Bush had the power to
prevent the frozen Iraqi funds from being awarded to the ex-POWs. But Roberts
refused to overturn his original finding that the men are entitled to compensation
from Iraq. He said the Justice Department's motion to have the entire compensation
judgment thrown out was "meritless."
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- "It does surprise me a little bit that Bush is not
helping," said Jeff Fox of Surfside Beach, S.C., who was held 15 days
after his A-10 was shot down over southern Iraq on Feb. 19, 1991. "It
sends a very bad message that a commander in chief would place veterans
and prisoners of war second behind a foreign nation. Deep down, I think
he (Bush) knows very little about it."
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- On Oct. 14, the U.S. Senate passed a nonbinding "sense
of Congress" amendment urging the administration to drop all resistance
to the claims of the former POWs and help them collect the damage awards
from assets of the Saddam regime still controlled by the United States.
The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), was added to the
bill providing $87 billion for U.S. military action and rebuilding in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
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- "The pain and terror American POWs endured at the
hands of the Iraqi government is unspeakable," Reid said. "We
must send a message to would-be tormentors of other governments that if
they torture American POWs, they will be held accountable."
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- Copyright 2003 The Star-Ledger.
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- http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-11/106724106865760.xm
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