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August 2, 1990, life could not have been better. I was living in
Kuwait City, where I headed Arthur Andersen's consulting practice
but still had plenty of time to spend with my wife and my two beautiful
children. On that day, however, Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait, and
my life changed forever. Within 48 hours of the invasion, I was
seized by Iraqi forces, barely avoided being raped by an Iraqi soldier,
and was taken to a detention center, where I heard the screams of
my Kuwaiti cellmates as I awaited my turn to be interrogated and
tortured. I was subsequently taken across the border into Iraq,
where I was assaulted with an AK-47 and lined up against a wall
for what I thought would be my execution. I was then transported
to three separate strategic sites, where I was forced to serve as
a "human shield," exposed to harsh conditions of detention,
and subjected to cruel and degrading treatment until I was finally
released, four months later. As a result of the incident, I have
been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder — a condition
from which I will never recover.
Two weeks ago,
I was given the opportunity to tell my story before a federal judge
in Washington, D.C. The court has already ruled that Iraq is liable
in my case, and I am awaiting its decision on the damages issue.
Unfortunately, however, owing to a policy that was developed by
the Clinton administration, that decision — along with others
that have been obtained against terrorist nations like Iraq —
may well be a dead letter.
The Bush administration
has a unique opportunity to differentiate itself from the Clinton
administration with regard to dealing with terrorist nations. It
should stand with, not against, the victims of international terrorism.
In 1996, five
years before the September 11 attacks, Congress addressed the issue
by passing a measure allowing American victims of terrorism to collect
compensation from the frozen assets of terrorist governments. The
measure was aimed at driving up the cost of terrorist activity and
providing a sense of justice to the victims. But after initially
encouraging the victims to collect, the State Department began a
five-year campaign in opposition to the victims and their families.
Congress was
forced to act again. The House passed a bill unanimously mandating
such payments. The Senate Judiciary Committee did the same thing.
But the Clinton administration objected, and at the last minute
undercut the purpose of the legislation — providing equal justice
to all American victims of terrorism — by demanding an agreement
that picked winners and losers among the victims. Some victims were
compensated; others were not. It was another example of the Clinton
administration sending weak and ambiguous signals to those who kill,
torture, and terrorize Americans.
Now, victims
of terrorism are asking the Bush administration to end the obfuscation
and stalling tactics of the State Department. Rep. Chris Cannon
(R., Utah) is listening to those victims. He added an amendment
to the antiterrorism legislation in the House that authorized the
courts to pay the victims from the frozen assets they've been awarded.
Unfortunately, the State Department lobbied hard against the amendment,
and it was dropped from the package at the last minute.
There is a
second opportunity. Senators Fritz Hollings (D., S.C.) and Bob Smith
(R., N.H.) have added an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, and
State appropriations bill that allows families to enforce court-awarded
judgments. State Department lobbyists are again roaming the halls
of Congress, making erroneous claims and promising to devise a better
way. But House and Senate members of the conference committee should
not be fooled — those who have been involved in this fight
in the past have heard these claims before.
House CJS Appropriations
Committee Chairman Frank Wolf (R., Va.), who represents the county
in which I reside, eloquently argued on behalf of the victims in
1998 in an earlier attempt to pass similar legislation on the Treasury
Postal measure. He pointed out that Congress will "not tolerate
the murder of our citizens in acts of state sponsored terrorism
without a serious price to pay… It is our view that the Court
should... reject the President's interpretation of legislative intent
and permit the victims to go forward in attaching and executing
all property of terrorist nations they are able to locate."
The Bush administration
should champion the victims, not the bureaucrats. It should support
the efforts of those like Cannon, Smith, and Hollings, who are fighting
for the families. We must remember that acts of terrorism are fundamentally
acts against people: people like Ira Weinstein, a Navy veteran and
husband and father who was killed in a terrorist bus bombing; Charles
Hegna, a dedicated civil servant who was brutally tortured and murdered
after identifying himself as an American on a hijacked aircraft
in 1984; and more than 100 other Americans who, like myself, were
taken hostage by Saddam Hussein and forced to serve as "human
shields" to prevent allied forces from liberating Kuwait. The
State Department's opposition to the victims and their families
only renews our suffering all over again.
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