Clarification on my comments about the soldiers who sued Iraq over being tortured

Mark at Earthly Passions had commented on my post about the soldiers from the first Gulf War who are trying to get compensation from frozen Iraqi assets for their having been tortured while in captivity. Apparently, I hadn't been as clear as I had intended as to why I brought up the issue of the tax cuts in connection with the dispute.

Kriselda at different strings posts a troubling issue regarding compensation for soldiers from Gulf War I. She and I will agree on half and disagree on half. She's right that those soldiers deserve to be compensated. But I don't make the connection with the tax cut here in the U.S. Seems to me that this is an Iraqi obligation to our soldiers, not a U.S. one. If I'm mistaken somehow that we've taken on that obligation, then add it to the deficit. It'll become a surplus soon enough as the economy gets rolling again.

Below is the response I posted to his site - I thought I'd go ahead and post it here as well, in case anyone else wasn't sure what I was getting at.

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My reason for connecting it to the tax cut isn't that I think America needs to pay the compensation to the soldiers. I agree that it is an Iraqi responsibility. The problem, though, is that the reason the administration has filed an appeal to deny payment to these soldiers is that they say the frozen Iraqi assets involved in the suit no longer belong to Iraq, but that they have been confiscated and converted to American assets and that America cannot afford to allow the assets to be turned over to the soldiers because we the money is needed for the Iraqi reconstruction.

The suit by the soldiers, establishing their claim on the Iraqi assets was filed prior to the confiscation, but the administration is basically saying that doesn't matter - the assets are now American assets and they aren't required (or able) to fulfill any obligations that Iraq may have had or claims made against those assets. They're saying that allowing the soldiers to have this roughly $1 billion in assets would significantly damage our ability to finish the job in Iraq.

My feeling is that if America's purse-strings are that tight right now, then rather than stiffing the soldiers, repeal part of the tax cut, use that money for rebuilding Iraq and let the soldiers have the proceeds from the Iraqi assets that the court has said they're entitled to. We do have an obligation to the Iraqi people to rebuild the damage we've done to their country, so let the Iraqi assets pay for compensation to the soldiers and take back just a small fraction of the tax cut. Recovering $1 billion - roughly the amount of the Iraqi assets - from the tax cuts wouldn't take that much given that the entire $87 billion that's been requested to rebuild Iraq is less than 1/4 of the total amount of the tax cuts passed so far.

Posted by thorswitch at November 11, 2003 10:16 PM | TrackBack