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After Veto, House Passes A Revised Military Policy Measure

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allan

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  • HadIt.com Elder

January 17, 2008 Note: The Senate is expected to approve the revised bill next week.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/us/17victims.html

After Veto, House Passes a Revised Military Policy Measure

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday approved a sweeping $696 billion military policy measure after revising a single provision in the 1,300-page bill that had prompted a surprise veto by President Bush.

Mr. Bush had strongly supported the original bill, which included pay raises for the military and was approved by wide margins in both the House and the Senate. But he vetoed it last month after the Iraqi government raised objections to a provision allowing American victims of state-sponsored terrorism under Saddam Hussein to sue and to collect judgments by seizing foreign assets in the United States.

The Iraqis had threatened to withdraw $25 billion from American banks if the president signed the measure.

The revised bill, approved by the House 369 to 46, grants the president wide authority to waive any provision of the section on lawsuits by terrorism victims as it relates to cases involving Iraq. But it also urges the administration to negotiate with Iraq “to ensure compensation for any meritorious claims based on terrorist acts committed by the Saddam Hussein regime.”

Some lawmakers expressed satisfaction that the waiver pertained only to Iraq and that the section retained in the bill would allow victims of terrorism suspected of being sponsored by Iran and Libya to collect judgments.

Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey and the author of the measure to help terrorism victims, said he was glad the revision left his measure mostly intact. He said in a statement, “My provision is critical to ensuring that American victims of terrorism get the justice they deserve and state sponsors of terrorism like Libya and Iran pay the price.”

Others expressed annoyance that Mr. Bush had delayed the bill to protect the financial interests of Iraq.

Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, the majority leader, said it struck him as “extraordinary” that while Mr. Bush recently requested $196 billion in additional funds for Iraq and Afghanistan, “the Iraqis threaten to take money out of our country if it would be used to compensate the victims of Saddam Hussein regime’s violence.”

The Senate is expected to approve the revised bill next week.

Among the outstanding lawsuits against the Iraqi government dating from before Mr. Hussein’s overthrow are a case involving 240 of the Americans who were held hostage for use as human shields in the months before the Persian Gulf war of 1991 and a case involving American prisoners of war, including pilots who were shot down and tortured.

Advocates for those claimants accused the Bush administration of siding with the Iraqi government over American victims, and of failing to live up to a pledge that it made in 2003 to help resolve the claims.

“We think it’s a betrayal of a promise the administration made, a continuation in a long series of broken promises,” said Daniel Wolf, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the human shields case.

The revised bill also makes retroactive to Jan. 1 a 3.5 percent pay raise for soldiers and other benefits.

Carl Hulse contributed reporting.

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"Keep on, Keepin' on"

Dan Cedusky, Champaign IL "Colonel Dan"

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  • HadIt.com Elder

Funny how worried they get about protecting the bad guys

Veterans deserve real choice for their health care.

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