[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 70 (Tuesday, May 18, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H3170-H3171]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        JUSTIFIABLE COMPENSATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, I probably will not take the full 5 
minutes because I am going to be joining my friend, the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Brown), a little later for a Special Order. But there was 
something that I wanted to point out that I think is relevant to every 
one of us who serves in this body.
  Following the exposure of the prisoner abuse in the prison in 
Baghdad, our Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, has said that he 
believes that the prisoners who were abused should be compensated by 
our government.
  Now, I do not have any real problem with that if in fact the abuse 
can be verified. But what puzzles me greatly is the fact that there 
have been other prisoners held in captivity in that part of the world, 
and I am talking about American prisoners, American POWs, who were held 
during the first Gulf War by the Iraqi regime and some 16 of those ex-
prisoners who were held by the Iraqi regime and treated terribly. They 
have described the abuse they endured while they were being held during 
that first Gulf War, and following

[[Page H3171]]

that they brought suit against the Iraqi Government. And they laid 
claim on the right to compensation, and it has been reported that our 
government had some $1 billion, perhaps even more than $1 billion which 
we had frozen. These were Iraqi Government assets which had been 
frozen, and these American ex-POWs having been tortured at the hands of 
the Iraqi regime asked the courts to grant them compensation. And lo 
and behold the courts, my understanding is, made the right decision and 
said that they were entitled to compensation. And they were hoping to 
be compensated from these frozen Iraqi funds. And lo and behold, and 
this is almost shocking, I believe, the Bush administration opposed 
these ex-POW American veterans from receiving compensation from the 
Iraqi Government, although we had the funds that could have been used 
to compensate them.
  Those funds, it is reported in the press, those funds have now been 
sent back to Iraq for the rebuilding of Iraq. Now, the question that I 
would ask the President is why would this administration support the 
compensating of Iraqi prisoners who were held in an American prison and 
were subject to abuse and would oppose compensation for American 
soldiers who were held in an Iraqi prison and abused? It just seems 
like a double standard that is difficult to explain. And so I believe 
the American people should be aware of this. And they should hold this 
administration accountable.
  If the Iraqi prisoners who were abused should be compensated, then 
certainly the American prisoners who were held by the Iraqi Government 
and subjected to terrible abuse, they should be compensated as well.
  I think this is a stark contradiction, but I do not think it is 
inconsistent with the way this administration has treated veterans when 
it comes to other benefits, and we will be talking about that a little 
later. But I felt like this situation was egregious enough, the 
contrast was stark enough that the American people should be aware of 
it.

                          ____________________