Acree v. Iraq Update

Judge Richard Roberts ruled on July 30th that the American POWs tortured in Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War cannot be compensated from frozen Iraqi assets.  This decision is based on a phrase from an appropriations bill that grants additional Presidential authority when a terrorist state, such as Iraq, is involved.  The government argued that the President used this authority in May to make it impossible for the POWs to satisfy their judgment against Iraq. 

Although stating that the government’s "position that the POWs are unable to recover any portion of their judgment, despite their sacrifice in the service of their country, seems extreme," and that the "physical and emotional damage inflicted was unspeakable," the court nonetheless found that the Congress authorized the President to block a valid judgment of the former POWs.

Representing the POWs, Steptoe's Steve Fennell has been quoted in reports from both AP and Bloomberg as saying, "It is really unthinkable that in the end the reconstruction of Iraq should be done on the backs of the POWs who were brutally tortured in Iraq."  According to the New York Times, frustration ran deep among the plaintiffs as former POW Lt. Col. Richard Dale Storr lamented that "Congress and the judicial branch say, ‘Let’s protect our guys to the maximum extent possible,’" while the executive branch is "saying the opposite."  The 17 former POWs are appealing the decision to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. 

For a summary of the case, please see below:

Summary of the Case
In Acree v. Republic of Iraq, Steve Fennell, Molly Poag, David Smyth, Tony Onorato, and Allison Ward, along with co-counsel John Norton Moore, represent seventeen American POWs who were tortured, beaten, and starved while held captive in Iraq during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Also included as plaintiffs are thirty-seven close family members of the POWs, who have suffered significant psychological trauma as a result of the torture inflicted upon their loved ones. The suit, filed in federal district court for the District of Columbia, names Saddam Hussein, the Republic of Iraq, and the Iraqi Intelligence Service as defendants. The statute under which this action was filed, 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(7), strips immunity from a foreign state for any case in which money damages are sought for personal injury caused by an act of torture or the provision of material support or resources for such torture. This statute is narrowly drawn to allow damage awards only against countries on the State Department's list of terrorist nations. Iraq was designated as a state sponsor of terrorism on September 13, 1990.

The defendants in this action are responsible for committing violent and inhuman acts, including both physical and psychological torture, against the Allied POWs held in Iraq between January 1991 and March 1991. The types of torture used included severe beatings (with objects ranging from axe handles and rifle butts to whips and clubs), systemic starvation, systematic exposure to freezing cold and vile confines, deprivation of medical care, electric shock, being burned with cigarettes, mock executions, videotaping for propaganda purposes, threatened castration, threatened amputation and dismemberment, continual death threats, and withholding contact by the Red Cross to confirm that the POWs were alive.

The plaintiffs have filed this suit as a means of deterring the torture of future POWs by sending an unequivocal message that Iraq (a Geneva Conventions signatory) and other terrorist nations will be held accountable for engaging in or sponsoring torture. The plaintiffs in this action intend to assign a substantial portion of any punitive damage award to a Foundation that will provide assistance to POW/MIAs of the United States, its allies, and their families in dealing with the ongoing physical, psychological and other adverse effects arising from their experiences.