]LoL[Harm
04-20-2004, 01:15 PM
I can't find any other stories backing this on LexusNexus. Haven't tried a google or what not however.
From da Washington Post:
SECTION: A Section; A08
LENGTH: 506 words
HEADLINE: POWs Not Entitled to Iraqi Funds, Justice Says;
Persian Gulf Vets Seek Payment That U.S. Wants to Go Toward Rebuilding Iraq
BYLINE: Carol D. Leonnig, Washington Post Staff Writer
BODY:
Justice Department lawyers argued yesterday that President Bush's decision to remove Iraq from the list of terrorism-sponsoring states nullified a $653 million judgment awarded to former U.S. prisoners of war tortured by the Iraqi military during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
The veterans won the judgment from the Iraqi government and are seeking to be paid from frozen Iraqi assets in the United States. But Justice Department lawyer Gregory Katsas said yesterday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the money is needed for the rebuilding of Iraq.
"What is at stake in this case is the enforcement of an executive order by the president of the United States and his ability to conduct foreign policy," Katsas said. "The government has an obvious and compelling interest in facilitating reconstruction of Iraq."
A group of 17 former prisoners of war and 37 family members won the judgment against the Iraqi government in July 2003, two months after Bush's executive order.
The Justice Department has sought to stop the payment in two ways. First, government lawyers successfully argued last year that the group could not seek to have the award paid from frozen Iraqi bank accounts, then in the control of the U.S. Treasury. Next, the government tried to strike the judgment as improper court action. A federal judge rejected the Justice Department's second move, but government lawyers appealed, and yesterday the debate landed before a three-judge appellate panel.
The veterans say the administration is ignoring their suffering during the war. "I take exception to the fact that someone wants to tear up the record of how I was treated in prisoner of war camps," David Eberly, 56, a retired Air Force colonel living in Williamsburg said after the hearing. "It's beyond me why the government has now turned its back on the men and women who served in the Gulf War."
In the courtroom, the judges questioned the administration's request to stamp out a court award after the fact.
"You're asking us to retroactively strip rights from these plaintiffs," said U.S. Circuit Judge John G. Roberts, a deputy solicitor general during the Gulf War.
In a series of new letters, released yesterday, the veterans and their relatives appealed to Bush, Vice President Cheney and his wife, Lynne Cheney, to support their monetary award as a way to deter other nations from torturing U.S. troops.
Cynthia Acree -- the wife of former Marine squadron commander Clifford Acree, the lead plaintiff -- wrote to Lynne Cheney that she remembered being comforted by her when Richard B. Cheney was secretary of defense and Clifford Acree was missing in Iraq. Cynthia Acree described being "enormously proud" of her husband's loyalty, and how he refused his Iraqi captors' demands to provide troop information and did not renounce his country even when they increased his beatings and fractured his skull.
Acree wrote that she "cannot believe that the democracy Cliff fought for would seek to overturn the court's judgment."
From da Washington Post:
SECTION: A Section; A08
LENGTH: 506 words
HEADLINE: POWs Not Entitled to Iraqi Funds, Justice Says;
Persian Gulf Vets Seek Payment That U.S. Wants to Go Toward Rebuilding Iraq
BYLINE: Carol D. Leonnig, Washington Post Staff Writer
BODY:
Justice Department lawyers argued yesterday that President Bush's decision to remove Iraq from the list of terrorism-sponsoring states nullified a $653 million judgment awarded to former U.S. prisoners of war tortured by the Iraqi military during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
The veterans won the judgment from the Iraqi government and are seeking to be paid from frozen Iraqi assets in the United States. But Justice Department lawyer Gregory Katsas said yesterday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the money is needed for the rebuilding of Iraq.
"What is at stake in this case is the enforcement of an executive order by the president of the United States and his ability to conduct foreign policy," Katsas said. "The government has an obvious and compelling interest in facilitating reconstruction of Iraq."
A group of 17 former prisoners of war and 37 family members won the judgment against the Iraqi government in July 2003, two months after Bush's executive order.
The Justice Department has sought to stop the payment in two ways. First, government lawyers successfully argued last year that the group could not seek to have the award paid from frozen Iraqi bank accounts, then in the control of the U.S. Treasury. Next, the government tried to strike the judgment as improper court action. A federal judge rejected the Justice Department's second move, but government lawyers appealed, and yesterday the debate landed before a three-judge appellate panel.
The veterans say the administration is ignoring their suffering during the war. "I take exception to the fact that someone wants to tear up the record of how I was treated in prisoner of war camps," David Eberly, 56, a retired Air Force colonel living in Williamsburg said after the hearing. "It's beyond me why the government has now turned its back on the men and women who served in the Gulf War."
In the courtroom, the judges questioned the administration's request to stamp out a court award after the fact.
"You're asking us to retroactively strip rights from these plaintiffs," said U.S. Circuit Judge John G. Roberts, a deputy solicitor general during the Gulf War.
In a series of new letters, released yesterday, the veterans and their relatives appealed to Bush, Vice President Cheney and his wife, Lynne Cheney, to support their monetary award as a way to deter other nations from torturing U.S. troops.
Cynthia Acree -- the wife of former Marine squadron commander Clifford Acree, the lead plaintiff -- wrote to Lynne Cheney that she remembered being comforted by her when Richard B. Cheney was secretary of defense and Clifford Acree was missing in Iraq. Cynthia Acree described being "enormously proud" of her husband's loyalty, and how he refused his Iraqi captors' demands to provide troop information and did not renounce his country even when they increased his beatings and fractured his skull.
Acree wrote that she "cannot believe that the democracy Cliff fought for would seek to overturn the court's judgment."