[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 5 (Tuesday, January 15, 2008)]
[House]
[Page H10]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2045
                  OVERRIDE THE VETO OF PRESIDENT BUSH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sestak) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SESTAK. Madam Speaker, tomorrow the House will vote on whether to 
override the veto of President Bush on the Defense authorization bill. 
He vetoed this bill because, within it, it permitted a servicemember 
who had been tortured in the first Gulf War to not only successfully 
sue the Iraqi Government, but having won that case, to be able to be 
given what the court awarded him or her.
  I am concerned and fear that tomorrow this House will vote to 
recommit to send that bill back to the House Armed Services Committee 
and to put a waiver in that bill which will permit President Bush to be 
able to overrule a court that has now awarded, as it has, a 
servicemember, having been tortured, the judgment that that court gave 
of Iraqi monies that are held here in the United States.
  The reason for that is the Iraqi Government has threatened to pull 
out of the United States $25 billion that it has invested over here. 
Every month we put almost $12 billion into Iraq in addition to those 
that wear the cloth of this Nation.
  This is a good bill in many ways, providing a pay raise of 3.5 
percent that is needed for the men and women that serve our Nation, but 
I do not understand how this President nor how this Congress could ever 
permit a man or a woman who has worn the cloth of this Nation in a war 
to have sued successfully, having been tortured, as law permits, to now 
not be permitted to gain the judgment that a court has given him or her 
merely because the Iraqi Government, obligated under international law 
for anything that prior governments in Iraq or any country that another 
successive government has succeeded to be responsible for merely 
because that government has threatened to take out of this country $25 
billion.
  We should vote to try to override this veto with the many good things 
in this bill. Many of us talk about taking care of our men and women. 
How can those who have not only come close to giving the ultimate 
sacrifice by torture, and who have continued to serve this Nation as 
they have come home, not be successful in being given what the court 
has provided them in their judgment?

                          ____________________