Should US release the $1 BN awarded captured vets from Gulf War I?

Great Debates
1

Not sure if this article turned up anywhere else, but in the Houston Chronicle of July 8, I found the following:

Former Gulf War POWs win Saddam suit

WASHINGTON – U.S. air crews brutalized in captivity during the first Gulf War won a nearly $1 billion judgment Tuesday against Saddam Hussein, but they may never see a cent because President Bush has seized the dictator’s frozen assets.

The federal lawsuit, filed in April 2002 by 17 Gulf War-era POWs, along with 37 family members, underscores that “the mental anguish and physical torture inflicted by this dictator is unacceptable,” said Col. David Eberly, a former wartime captive tortured by Saddam’s soldiers after his F-15 was shot down over Iraq in January 1991.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/1985830

Basically the article state that in a ruling handed down US district judge Richard W. Roberts, the plainiffs have been awarded $650 million in compensatory damages and $306 million in punitive damages. The hitch is, any money awarded would presumably come out of Iraqi assets in the US (amounting to approx. $1.73 billion), but these assets have been frozen by the US government and, accoring to an Executive order signed in March by the president, are ot be used exlusively for reconstruction in Iraq.

The White House apprently has not yet responded as to whether the order might be amended or lifted to release the funds, but indications from the article are that this will not occur.

This apparently places the plaintiffs in the curious position of having the award they are legally entitled to withheld by the employer (the US government) who put them in harm’s way in the first place.

The point for debate here is, should the money be released to the former POWs? My personal opinion is that they are duly entitled to their compensation, should they not choose to decline it, and that it should come form the siezed assets. I’d be interested to hear any legal or ethical comments for or against this view.

In case it’s not clear we apparently have: an award for abuses which occurred during Gulf War I, and an award that could be paid from assets siezed during the course of Gulf War II.

Oh, and as I am sure someone will mention it, this is not another Bush-bashing exercise. I’m simply interested in opinions on what seems to be a highly unusual legal dilemma.

2

I think they should receive the money. They won it in a judgment. It actually is Hussein’s money, and that’s what was awarded. The right thing for the government to do would be to honor the judgment. After all, we have to “support the troops” – a convenient catch phrase leading up to war, but often a sticky wicket after war.

Will they receive the money? I sincerely doubt it.

3

This is weird though, no?

How can you sue someone who isn’t around to face a court?

If I were a very old mistreated russian citizen, could I sue stallin?

4

Well, as I underestand it, the suit was launched in March 2002; at that time Saddam Hussein, the defendant, was very much “around”. Also, the US government apparently had siezed Iraqi assets in the US; thus in a suit in a US court, those assets could could make up any potential award. This was superceded, however by the March 2003 Presidential order declaring that the seized assets would be used for iraqi reconstruction. Hence the problem.