Yasmin's letter: July 30, 2003


Now, thieves are fighting among themselves for Iraqi stolen money.


Have you ever heard of POW being compensated a billion $ ?

Who is going to keep the 1.9 billion frozen money? Is it Ramsfeld, using it
to pay for the US occupation or is it the POWs.


For Iraqis, it doesn't matter, as they will benefit of neither.


In peace.


yasmin





U.S. Opposes Using Seized Iraqi Funds for POWs





      Tue July 29, 2003 03:26 PM ET


      WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government told a federal judge on
Tuesday that it did not want to use seized Iraqi funds to compensate 17 Americans
held as prisoners of war during the 1991 Gulf War.


Shannen Coffin, a deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice
Department, said the government preferred to spend the money on rebuilding postwar
Iraq.


      "It really is unthinkable that in the end that the reconstruction of
Iraq should be done on the backs of the POWs who were brutally tortured
(there)," said Stephen Fennell, attorney for the 17 former prisoners of war and their
families who are trying to recover the nearly $1 billion in damages they were
awarded earlier this month.


      "We need to deter the continued torture of American POWs," he said.


      U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts has put a hold on the balance that
remains of about $1.9 billion in frozen funds the White House earmarked in
March for Iraqi infrastructure and economic development projects.


      The account has been drawn down to about $722 million and Roberts
blocked further transfers while he considers a proposal by the prisoners that they
should be paid from the fund.


      Earlier this month Roberts awarded $653 million in compensatory damages
and $306 million in punitive damages to prisoners of war and their families
who have sued the Iraqi government, Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi Intelligence
Service for pain and suffering.


Iraq never responded to the suit which was filed in April 2002.


      Attorneys for the prisoners want their clients to be paid from blocked
Iraqi assets held by the U.S. government.


      But Justice Department officials said President Bush's March order
seizing the assets makes it clear the funds should mainly be used in Iraq.


      "The United States does not have an obligation to pay these claims to
plaintiffs," said Coffin.


      Col. David Eberly, the senior American POW who was held captive for
more than six weeks in 1991, criticized the government for failing to stand by
its own troops.


      "It's not about the money," he told reporters outside the courtroom.
"It is rather ironic that we have come to a point that a representative of the
government is now arguing for a government ... that our government sent us into
combat for."


      The U.S. government says the award should be set aside and the lawsuit
dismissed due to changes in Iraq since May. With Saddam no longer in power,
provisions in U.S. law that allow for compensation for victims of
state-sponsored terrorism do not apply, Coffin argued.



http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=L2SGXNMGVENPICRBAELCFEY?type=politicsNews&storyID=3180874



        Deborah Charles Reuters