Jerry Brito

Here’s some compassion

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Seventeen American ex-POWs who were jailed and tortured by Hussein’s government during the first Gulf War sued Iraq in federal court. They won by default and were awarded $956 million–$653 million in compensatory damages, $306 million in punitive damages. This is money that they could collect from frozen Iraqi government assets.

But as the New York Times reports today, the Bush administration has filed in court against the veterans. They don’t want them to get one red cent because, the government says, it needs the money for the reconstruction effort.

“No amount of money can truly compensate these brave men and women for the suffering that they went through at the hands of a truly brutal regime,” said White House spokesman Scott McClellan, perhaps a little too literally. “It was determined earlier this year by Congress and the administration that those assets were no longer assets of Iraq, but they were resources required for the urgent national security needs of rebuilding Iraq.”

Now, I dislike unreasonable jury awards as much as the next guy, but this was an award handed down by a judge. Plus, even if you think $56 million per tortured soldier is too much, don’t you want them to have something? At the very least to recognize what they went through? Well, the compassionate conservatives over at DOJ don’t think so. I wonder why they can’t just ask for the judge to order remittitur?

Another interesting tidbit in the story is that “in a related case” families of Sept. 11 victims are also suing to get their hands on some frozen Iraqi money. Wouldn’t it be something if government lawyers were put in the position where they had to argue that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11?

Nov 10, 2003 | Comments