Capitol Words a project of the Sunlight Foundation

Rep. Robert C. Scott

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5167) to amend the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 to remove the authority of the President to waive certain provisions, as amended.

The Clerk read the title of the bill.

Rep. Robert C. Scott

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on the bill under consideration.

Rep. Robert C. Scott

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the Justice and Victims of Torture and Terrorism Act, introduced by the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Braley) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Sestak), will enable American POWs and civilians to hold the Government of Iraq liable for the physical and emotional injuries they sustained while held captive by Iraqi officials during the Gulf War.

During the Persian Gulf War, American pilots captured by Iraq were brutalized in horrendous ways. They were starved, exposed to extreme temperatures, severely beaten, and subjected to mock executions.

Because Iraq believed that these pilots had more sensitive information, they were subjected to especially brutal treatment. They sustained long-lasting physical and emotional injuries.

American civilians who had the misfortune of being held in Iraq at the time it invaded Kuwait were held hostage as ``human shields,'' used as leverage to interfere with the campaign to liberate Kuwait and defeat the Iraqi forces. These civilians were held in cruel and degrading conditions and forced to live in constant fear.

While Congress has supported giving terrorism victims the right to obtain effective relief, the executive branch has allowed State Department sensitivities to overshadow the fundamental rights of these victims to fair redress.

In amending the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act in 1996, Congress intended to create a Federal statutory cause of action for American victims of terrorism, so that they could hold foreign States that commit or provide material support for terrorist acts accountable in United States courts.

Congress reaffirmed that intent last December in the National Defense Authorization Act. Unfortunately, the President vetoed the bill on that basis and insisted that the Congress give him waiver authority for Iraq, which he promptly exercised, once again placing relief out of reach for these victims.

In its introduced form, the bill simply rescinded that waiver authority. It has now been amended, with the assistance of the sponsors, as well as the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa), working with the victims and their families.

The bill we are considering today would give the Iraqi Government 90 days after enactment to satisfactorily settle the claims of American victims to prevent the waiver authority from being rescinded.

The waiver authority would also survive if the President certifies that Iraq has no settlement claims of non-Americans that are similar to the claims of the POWs and human shields and has not settled commercial debts to foreign corporations.

The amended bill also specifies limits on the damage awards, to remove any argument about potentially open-ended liability. The specified amounts are a fraction of the outstanding judgment awards and pending claims.

Under this proposal, the Iraqi Government would be required to pay approximately $415 million. The amount of recovery sought is de minimis relative to the 20 to $32 billion in commercial claims that Iraq has reportedly settled with the corporations in Japan and Korea. It also amounts to perhaps 1 percent of the Iraqi Government assets held in United States banks.

I believe that holding Iraq accountable is an essential element in its full rehabilitation in the community of nations. This holds true to well-settled international law, as well as the Geneva Convention.

I commend my colleagues, Mr. Braley and Mr. Sestak, for their leadership and unwavering dedication in bringing this important legislation forward. I also commend the Judiciary Committee ranking member, Mr. Smith, and the gentleman from California (Mr. Issa) for their leadership in making this a bipartisan effort.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Rep. Darrell Issa

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this piece of legislation. I was not aware of it in its earliest authorship. I became aware of it, in addition to the issue which I was aware of, only when it began to move toward our committee. As I looked at both the legislation and those affected, who had worked so valiantly for 17 years to try to bring justice to an unjust occurrence in the history of Iraq, I discovered that we had a large group of men and women who had been used as human shields, a relatively small group of people who had been tortured at Saddam's hands, Americans.

But what I also discovered was that these people had no other way to focus the injustice of what had happened to them than by seeking a remedy in the courts, and that had been denied them for so long. Now they have that remedy from the courts, and they're being denied the opportunity to avail themselves of it.

Mr. Speaker, if this were just about money, I wouldn't be standing here. This is not. This is about a much larger cause. Throughout our history, we have endeavored to compensate our men and women when we send them to war. We've endeavored to compensate them when they're prisoners of war, but we will never be able to compensate them for the torture that they've received at the hands of barbarians.

The very barbarian who ordered this misconduct, Saddam Hussein, has been executed by the new government of Iraq. The new government of Iraq every day is seeking to reenter the world of justice and civilized nations. They're doing so in a myriad of ways, including settling the wrongful acts of the Saddam regime. This is no different.

The amendments that I asked for, and on a bipartisan way were granted, in the Judiciary Committee sought to make it clear America wants no compensation from the new Iraq government unless it is consistent with other compensation for similar acts of the Saddam Hussein regime. As Mr. Scott has already said, the administration of Iraq is making those efforts today, and I know they will negotiate in good faith with the victims of torture if, in fact, they have standing to do so.

That's why we're working on a bipartisan basis to grant the President the ability, if there are not similar settlements, to withhold this capability until or unless there are. I don't want this to be about every past war, but it wouldn't be fair to ask for this if we hadn't previously seen Libya make settlements finally but only after the State Department had withdrawn their objections.

And to most people here on the House floor, World War II is but a memory or a piece of history they've read about. The men and women who were taken at Bataan and other places were tortured. Most of them died. Then, too, we felt that we shouldn't burden the new Japanese Government with the sins of the past government. I think that's a bad precedent.

I believe that the making whole of people for whom you have done more than just conduct war is, in fact, the responsibility on an ongoing basis of a government if they have the ability and certainly if they grant similar compensation to people from other countries or, in the case of Japan, Libya and post-Saddam Iraq, if they grant money damages to companies who often lost nothing but money.

So, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to support this legislation wholeheartedly. I know my Republican colleagues will. I note that this is, in fact, a good message to the administration to facilitate the settlement rather than to stand aside on it.

Mr. Speaker, many members of our armed forces faced horrible abuse and torture at the hands of Iraq's former dictator, Saddam Hussein, during the first Gulf War. We owe those members of the armed forces not only our sympathy, but our deepest thanks for enduring immense pain and suffering for a larger cause that helped keep all of us safe here at home. We also owe those members of the armed forces justice. And that's why we're here today to pass H.R. 5167, the Justice for Victims of Torture and Terrorism Act.

In the closing hours before the most recent House recess, I was very pleased to see the House, and the Senate, send legislation to the President that statutorily approved an agreement that was reached between the State Department and Libya regarding the compensation of Americans injured by Libyan-sponsored terrorism. That legislation was passed by both bodies under unanimous consent. It not only approved the negotiated agreement, which provides for hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation, but it also protected the agreement from being undone by lawyers and judges who would have otherwise interfered with its implementation.

The agreement with Libya shows that State-to-State negotiations for the compensation of victims of terrorism can work. It is a far more effective means of compensating victims than lawsuits, as domestic court judgments are always difficult to enforce, and foreign entities have many ways of moving their funds offshore to avoid collection. Negotiations worked to provide fair compensation for the victims of Libya, and they can work to provide fair compensation to the victims of the torture and terrorism perpetrated by Saddam Hussein's former regime.

I was very pleased to have been able to craft a bill with Chairman Conyers that not only facilitates, but encourages, State-to-State negotiations with the new democracy in Iraq that is the surest means of providing ultimate compensation for deserving victims. An amendment I offered at committee with Chairman Conyers, and which is now part of this bill, provides that the negotiations process will be allowed to continue as long as ``the President has certified to the Congress . . . that . . . negotiations are ongoing with the Government of Iraq to settle the claims in the [covered] cases . . . and the President believes that those negotiations are being conducted in good faith and could lead to a satisfactory settlement of those claims . . .''

Under this provision, the President must, on a regular basis, provide Congress with a status report attesting to the continuing good faith negotiations between the parties, and to the prospect that those negotiations could lead to a satisfactory settlement. That provision is necessary to help balance several worthy goals.

One of those goals is the maintaining of a stable, free, and democratic Iraq that will help ensure horrors the likes of which were seen under Saddam Hussein will not be seen again. To that end, earlier in this Congress, Congress passed H.R. 4986, which authorized the President to waive lawsuits against the new democracy in Iraq if the President determined that the waiver is in the national security interest of the United States; that the waiver will promote the reconstruction of, the consolidation of democracy in, and the relations of the United States with, Iraq; and that Iraq continues to be a reliable ally of the United States and partner in combating acts of international terrorism. On the day the President signed that provision into law, he signed a waiver and issued a statement justifying the exercise of the waiver authority.

But H.R. 4986 also included a Sense of Congress that provides as follows:

``[T]he President, acting through the Secretary of State, should work with the Government of Iraq on a state-to-state basis to ensure compensation for any meritorious claims based on terrorist acts committed by the Saddam Hussein regime against individuals who were United States nationals or members of the United States Armed Forces at the time of those terrorist acts and whose claims cannot be addressed in courts in the United States due to the exercise of the waiver authority.''

It is now time to provide the statutory requirements necessary to implement that Sense of Congress. We do that here today by passing H.R. 5167, which gives our policy of encouraging good faith negotiations to provide fair and tangible compensation to victims of torture the force of statutory law. I urge all my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Speaker, I would reserve the balance of my time while again urging support for the bill.

Rep. Robert C. Scott

Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to one of the sponsors of the bill, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Braley).

Rep. Bruce Braley

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Mr. Scott and the chairman of the committee, as well as Ranking Member Smith and my friend from California, for their support for this important bill.

I rise today because preventing torture of U.S. prisoners of war and citizens should be our highest priority as a Nation. This bill, H.R. 5167, is a bipartisan compromise that will finally, after 17 long years, provide justice for American POWs and civilian hostages who were tortured and terrorized by Saddam Hussein's regime.

And to put a human face on this, Mr. Speaker, these are some of the faces of tortured POWs that this bill is designed to address.

My friend Cliff Acree, a colonel in the United States Marine Corps, aviation, and Commander Jeffrey Zaun from the United States Navy were visible faces of the Gulf War invasion and what was happening to our troops in Iraq.

This photograph shows what happens when we put our young men and women in harm's way and subject them to brutal regimes like what we found when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and the country of Iraq was labeled as a State sponsor of terrorism which is a necessary predicate to this claim in first place.

Immediately after these captured POWs started showing up on television, this Congress, including the House of Representatives which was under Republican control at that time, passed multiple resolutions condemning the brutal treatment of our prisoners of war, demanding that Iraq abide by the Third Geneva Convention concerning POWs and stated Congress' intention to hold Iraq accountable for tortured POWs.

Why is that important? Because the United States, along with Iraq, are part of the signatory nations to the Third Geneva Convention, and one of the most important articles for the purpose of this bill was article 131, which says no country--and this would include Iraq--shall be allowed to absolve itself or any other country of any liability related to the prohibited treatment of prisoners of war.

It wasn't just our POWs, though. There were civilian hostages taken by the Saddam Hussein regime, including famous CBS news reporter Bob Simon and his cameraman Roberto Alvarez who were kidnapped while on assignment in the Gulf War and were being held and tortured along with the POWs.

There were also numerous civilians who were captured by Saddam Hussein in Kuwait, including children, and were kept and held as human shields and subject to abusive treatment and torture along with our U.S. military forces. That is one of the reasons why this bill came about in the first place.

When these tortured POWs came home--and just so that we can put this into context, these POWs were subjected to cruel physical and mental torture. They were beaten, they were starved, they were hooked to electronic devices and shocked, and subjected to other horrendous acts.

Cliff Acree, the person whose picture is on this chart, had his nose broken on multiple occasions and his skull fractured in addition to being subjected to multiple other forms of abuse.

When these POWs came home, their Secretary of Defense, who was at that time Dick Cheney, said your country is opening its arms to greet you.

And this body, Congress, acted promptly to address these crimes that were committed in violation of international law by passing amendments to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and, in 1996, provided that Americans tortured and terrorized in Iraq could seek compensation for their injuries from those terrorist countries, including Iraq.

Now, these Gulf War POWs have been through hell, and they waited a long time for their opportunity to get justice. So in 2003, after the Government of Iraq repeatedly refused to negotiate these claims with them and refused to accept service, a judge awarded these 17 POWs a judgment for damages and stated in his ruling that deterring the torture of POWs should be of the highest priority of this government.

But shortly after that award was entered, this administration, which at that time was engaged in Operation Iraqi Freedom, decided that, even though one group of human shield plaintiffs had been compensated by the Government of Iraq, that they were going to seize the assets that were held in U.S. banks that could have been used to satisfy the payment to these tortured American POWs and instead applied them to the reconstruction of Iraq. And Scott McClellan, who was a White House spokesman, on November 6 said, ``The United States condemns, in the strongest terms, the brutal torture to which these Americans were subjected. However, no amount of money can truly compensate these brave men and women for the suffering they went through at the hands of Saddam Hussein's brutal regime, so that's why we're going to extinguish their claims.''

There is a problem, and this problem was mentioned by my friend Mr. Scott, and also by Mr. Issa; that is, that this argument is hollow when you look at what our government has done to help Iraq resolve $20 billion of commercial debt that are outstanding to companies like Mitsubishi of Japan and Hyundai of Korea. And if you look at the fact that in this fiscal year the Government of Iraq will probably generate somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 billion in oil revenues, this small liability to these tortured American citizens clearly should be a higher priority than settling the commercial debts of Japanese and Korean corporations.

That's why the Justice for Victims of Torture and Terrorism Act requires the Government of Iraq to resolve the claims of American victims who are willing to give up all of their punitive damage award that they've already been awarded by the court and two-thirds of their compensatory damages to try to get this matter resolved and allow Iraq to move forward as a nation that belongs to the international community. And the waiver is only eliminated if Iraq does not pay the victims within the time period allotted. And this time period has been part of the Defense Authorization bill since the President's veto last December and since we came back with a new Defense Authorization bill that passed in early January.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, why does this matter? It matters because preventing the torture of current U.S. citizens and troops should be one of our highest priorities in this body.

Rep. Robert C. Scott

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

Rep. Bruce Braley

Upholding our international treaty obligations not to absolve sponsors of terrorism and deterring other countries from engaging in the same type of state-sponsored terrorism that Iraq engaged in should be the message that this legislation sends.

This is a bipartisan agreement. We want to work with the administration to see that these deserving heroes finally get the justice they deserve after 17 years.

Rep. Darrell Issa

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve.

Rep. Robert C. Scott

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Sestak), an original sponsor of the legislation.

Rep. Joe Sestak

Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak in support of this bill from a different perspective. My colleagues from Iowa and California spoke very well about this bill and its purpose.

For 31 years, I served in the military under laws that this Congress passed. We knew that we were allowed to kill, but we also knew that this Congress of ours, under the advising and consent agreement in the Senate, had passed a contract with me that I was not to torture. That contract was one that, if I did, I would stain this Nation, and that this Nation then would be held liable, as had been pointed out under the international law that we have accepted for my act of torture. But at the same time, I always knew that I had a contract with this Nation, a Nation of laws, not of men, and that if I were to be tortured, that this Nation would be there for me, that it would uphold its end of this law that we agreed to internationally in 1949--and that was that we would hold another country liable for that act of torture against me, someone who wore the cloth of this Nation for 31 years.

That contract--that this Nation is actually a Nation of laws and not of men--is what is beat into us day after day in the military. In 1996, one administration passed a law, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, and said, you men, you can sue. Another administration in 2008 passed another law, the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, and said, you men, you can, under law, sue. That someone, for whatever reason, decided that this contract with our military members would not be upheld I think is a stain on the institution of the Presidency and upon this institution of Congress if we do not uphold that contract with our warriors.

The best picture in the Pentagon is one across from the Secretary of Defense's office. It is of a young servicemember kneeling in church and beside him is his young spouse and a young child. And under it you can tell this individual is about to deploy again into harm's way. And there is then noted that wonderful inscription from the Bible where God has turned to Isaiah and says, ``Whom shall I send? Who shall go for us?'' And Isaiah said, ``Here am I, send me.''

We don't serve a man, we serve a Nation of laws. And that's what this is really about today. I urge everyone in this Congress, both sides, and our President, who represents us as our Commander in Chief, to support this bill.

Rep. Darrell Issa

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, this is drawing to a close. I think that so much has been said, not nearly enough. I appreciate my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who have done such a good job of making this a bipartisan piece of legislation.

Additionally, I would like to echo the last speaker because the gentleman from Pennsylvania, rightfully so, reminded us that the men and women in our Armed Forces, in which he served and in which I served, know the rules; they know the rules that we operate under, and we know the penalty if we break those rules. We know that if our country were to, in fact, torture somebody, we would both punish those who did it and compensate those who were treated in any inconsistent way with the rule of law. We only ask that the post-Saddam Iraq, if they're paying compensation and apologizing to others, they do the same to the men who suffered at their hands.

So I think that for all the men and women serving in the Armed Forces today and those who have served in the past, this Congress, on a bipartisan basis, is taking a giant step toward saying we will hold others accountable as we have always held our own accountable.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Rep. Robert C. Scott

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for his cooperation in this bipartisan effort, and I hope that we pass the bill.

Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee

Mr. Speaker, I support H.R. 5167, the ``Justice for Victims of Torture and Terrorism Act.'' This bill was sponsored by Representative Braley of Iowa. The bill's purpose is to amend the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 to remove the authority of the President to waive certain provisions. I support this bill and I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

H.R. 5167, the Justice for Victims of Torture and Terrorism Act, responds to harms suffered by U.S. nationals under the Government of Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War and their efforts to hold Iraq, then a designated foreign state sponsor of terrorism, liable for their injuries. H.R. 5167 presents a new proposal to facilitate the settlement of these claims.

This bill is important and necessary. I was shocked when I found out that the President was going to veto the Defense Authorization bill on Christmas Eve. The President vetoed the $3.5 billion authorization package that would have provided resources for military members, their families, and veterans, because it contained a provision that would have allowed Operation Desert Storm Prisoners of War, POW, to continue their case against the Hussein regime.

In 2002, 17 American ex-prisoners of war were brutally tortured in Iraq during the first Persian Gulf War sued Saddam Hussein's regime. The veterans eventually won a judgement against Hussein. But shortly after the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration stepped in and had the judgement overturned.

According to a Dec. 28 report in Congressional Quarterly, President Bush issued his veto after lawyers for the Iraqi Government threatened to withdraw $25 billion worth of assets from U.S. banks if the provisions was allowed to become law. The American POWs were granted damages by a U.S. district court in July 2003. The court awarded $959 million in compensatory and punitive damages to the 17 POWs--some of whom remain on active duty today and are serving in Iraq.

But earlier in 2003, after signing a bill that allowed Americans to collect court-ordered damages from the frozen assets of terrorist states--a list that included Iraq at that time--President Bush had confiscated what was then $1.7 billion in Iraqi assets held in private banks. He allowed the payment of two judgments including one for so-called ``human shield'' hostages held in Iraq in 1990, but none for the Americans taken prisoner in the 1991 Gulf War.

The President chose to respect corporate interests over human interests and corporate rights over human rights. This is something that the American people have seen from this administration in the past in unrelated matters.

This bill, H.R. 5167, the ``the Justice for Victims of Torture and Terrorism Act'' restores a provision in the previously vetoed Defense bill that would allow American veterans and victims of torture to pursue legal claims against their torturers.

Simply put, American veterans tortured as prisoners of war do not deserve to be left behind by a presidential policy that keeps them from seeking justice. We need to hold countries accountable for torturing American troops so it never happens again. We need to get our priorities straight. Protecting American veterans and POWs should come before protecting a country's assets.

We must act today to correct this problem. I urge my colleagues to act with me, and support this bill. A strong bipartisan message of support needs to be displayed by this body to right the wrongs and send a message to the President that American soldiers deserve better. The message is clear: American soldiers deserve the right to bring torturers to justice. I invite my colleagues to stand with me today and support this important legislation.

Rep. Robert C. Scott

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.