The current Bush administration, which has cut veterans’ health care benefits and the combat pay of those serving in Iraq, continues to dig in its heels on payment of reparations to 17 POWs from the first Gulf War.
A U.S. district court awarded almost $1 Billion to the POWs last summer, but payment of the award, from Iraqi assets mind you, was blocked by the Bush administration. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada sponsored an amendment to help the POWs last year, but it was dropped under pressure from the State Department.
The administration claims pure motives, of course, but isn’t this action consistent with the notion that the spoils of this particular war belong to Halliburton, Bechtel and other friends of the Republican Right?
Heaven porfend that they should have to share that bounty with soldiers who were starved and tortured by the enemy. In the world of Bush II, that would be downright un-American.