How do you spell US government hypocrites :) Original Article U.S. fights ex-POWs who won Iraq suit David G. Savage Los Angeles Times Feb. 18, 2005 12:00 AM WASHINGTON - The latest chapter in the legal history of torture is being written by U.S. pilots who were beaten and abused by Iraqis during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. And it has taken a strange twist. The Bush administration is fighting the former prisoners of war in court, trying to prevent them from collecting nearly $1 billion from Iraq that a federal judge awarded them as compensation for their torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime. The rationale: Today's Iraqis are good guys, and they need the money. The case abounds with ironies. It pits the U.S. government squarely against its own war heroes and the Geneva Conventions. Many of the pilots were tortured in the same Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib, where U.S. soldiers abused Iraqis 15 months ago. Those Iraqi victims, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said, deserve compensation from the United States. But the U.S. victims of Iraqi torturers are not entitled to similar payments from Iraq, the U.S. government says. "It seems so strange to have our own country fighting us on this," said retired Air Force Col. David W. Eberly, the senior former POW. The case, now being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, tests whether "state sponsors of terrorism" can be sued in U.S. courts for torture, murder or hostage-taking. The court is expected to decide in the next two months whether to hear the appeal. Congress opened the door to such claims in 1996, when it lifted the shield of sovereign immunity, prohibiting lawsuits against foreign governments, for any nation that supports terrorism. Iraq was one of seven identified by the State Department as sponsoring terrorist activity. The 17 Gulf War POWs looked to have a very strong case when they first filed suit in 2002. They had been undeniably tortured by a tyrannical regime, one that had $1.7 billion of its assets frozen by the U.S. government. The picture changed, however, when the United States invaded Iraq nearly two years ago and toppled Saddam from power. On July 21, 2003, two weeks after the Gulf War POWs won their court case in U.S. District Court, the Bush administration intervened to argue that their claims should be dismissed. "No amount of money can truly compensate these brave men and women for the suffering that they went through at the hands of this very brutal regime and at the hands of Saddam Hussein," White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters when he was asked about the case in November 2003. Government lawyers insist, literally, on "no amount of money" going to the Gulf War POWs. "These resources are required for the urgent national-security needs of rebuilding Iraq," McClellan said. The case tests a key provision of the Geneva Conventions. The United States and other signers pledged never to "absolve" a state of "any liability" for the torture of POWs. Former military lawyers and a bipartisan group of lawmakers have been among those who have urged the Supreme Court to take up the case and to strengthen the law against torturers and tyrannical regimes.