POWs Held by Iraq in 1991 Win Nearly $1 Billion in Suit

WASHINGTON -- A federal judge has awarded nearly $1 billion in damages to a group of American soldiers and their families who sued Saddam Hussein, the Republic of Iraq and the Iraqi intelligence service for torture they endured while imprisoned during the 1991 Gulf War.

The award -- to 17 former POWs who U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts said had endured “unrestrained savagery” from their Iraqi captors -- is among the largest triggered by a 1996 federal law that permits victims of torture and other abuse to sue rogue nations for personal injuries. Roberts’ decision was issued late Monday.

But it’s far from clear how much money, if any, the plaintiffs are going to get, since they are facing resistance from the Bush administration in their attempt to collect.

In March, on the eve of the latest Iraq war, the White House redirected $1.73 billion in seized Iraqi assets that the POWs had hoped to use to satisfy any judgment in their case. An executive order requires that the money be used instead for the postwar Iraqi rebuilding effort.

“This [court] ruling provides a long overdue public record of the atrocities inflicted on these brave Americans,” said attorney Steve Fennell of Steptoe & Johnson, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs. “It also drives home the point that our servicemen and women need not accept torture as a natural incident of military service, and that those responsible for the torture of POWs will be held accountable.

“It is hard to find more patriotic people,” Fennell added. “You would think the administration would be bending over backwards to make sure that they receive full and complete justice.... It is our hope that when the president himself becomes fully aware of this he will do the right thing.”

A White House spokesman declined to comment on the case.

The $959-million judgment reflects awards to the POWs ranging from $16 million to $35 million each to compensate them for injuries sustained while in captivity and for lingering physical and psychological injuries suffered after release.

A total of 37 spouses and other family members who were also named as plaintiffs in the suit were awarded from $5 million to $10 million each.

Aside from $653 million in compensatory damages, the award also includes $306 million in punitive damages, aimed at punishing or deterring misconduct.

The case “involves systematic and excruciating physical and mental torture carried out by experienced agents of torture in Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi intelligence service,” Judge Roberts wrote. In a 118-page opinion, the judge described “an all-encompassing environment of physical brutality and physical injury.”

The 17 who sued were among 21 POWs held over the seven-week war. Most were shot down over Iraq or Kuwait, and held in basement cells of the Iraqi secret police headquarters that the POWs nicknamed the “Baghdad Biltmore.”

Besides beatings and squalid living conditions, the POWs endured mock executions and were used as human shields.

Air Force Lt. Col. Jeffrey Tice, whose F-16 was shot down by an Iraqi missile, was subjected to a form of electric-shock torture through a device dubbed the “Talkman” that was wired around his head. He was also forced to play Russian roulette.

The judge also found that the plaintiffs and their families were left with residual emotional and physical problems, including fractured relationships that ended in divorce.

The ruling “makes a statement that you cannot go out and abuse POWs like this. You cannot torture people and expect to get away with it,” said Dale Storr, a former Air Force jet pilot who was held for 33 days.

“It is the greatest message we can send -- although it is not much of a message if it is not backed up with some kind of settlement,” said Storr, a Spokane, Wash., resident who now flies for United Airlines and is an officer in the Washington Air National Guard.

In 1996, Congress amended the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, allowing victims of torture and other abuse to file suit in U.S. courts against countries on the State Department’s list of nations that support terrorism.

Fennell filed the POW suit in April 2002; Hussein and his team never answered the complaint, and were held in default in September.

Fennell said he would begin legal proceedings to locate and attach the disputed Iraqi assets, which the U.S. has been holding in an account at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. He said a portion of any of the punitive award recovered would go to create a foundation to assist other former POWs and their families.

But given the government’s opposition to the private claims, he said, “it is a journey that I cannot fully script right now.”