Judge Says Frozen Iraq Funds Can't Be used for Sept. 11 Families

[demdave]

NEW YORK (AP) - A judge ruled Thursday that families of Sept. 11 victims cannot tap into Iraqi funds frozen by the United States at the start of the first Gulf War because the money will be spent to reconstruct war-torn Iraq.
U.S. District Judge Harold Baer issued the decision after family members sought to freeze some of the $1.7 billion in funds - which the Bush administration has already started to use to help pay for Iraq's revival - to satisfy an earlier court ruling saying Iraq owed the families $63.5 million.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGACW5T2HKD.html


Headline edited for length

[arcane1]

1. with ALL due respect for the families...

:wtf:

tying to take money from the Iraqis now, for 9/11??????

:wtf:


someone please pass me what they are smoking...

[hang a left]

12. whoa whoa wait a minute

wasn't this an award against Sadam for Gulf War Syndrome Victims. WTF

[truthisfreedom]

2. just who said that iraq should be paying for what bin laden, their sworn

enemy, allegedly did?

[arcane1]

3. are the court transcripts available?

snip-

Earlier this year, Baer had concluded that Iraq aided Osama bin Laden's terror network prior to Sept. 11, 2001, when roughly 3,000 people died in attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.

Baer said lawyers for two victims "have shown, albeit barely ... that Iraq provided material support to bin Laden and al-Qaida."



um, not even the president has done that! :wtf:

[Proud_American]

5. This was a civil case

The burden of proof is much less than required in a criminal case. The judge basically took the word of the plaintiff in the case apparently for no other reason than finding the plaintiff more credible/believable than nobody (there was no defense presented). It's hogwash! Yet that's not stopping the neocon Bush worshippers from saying that it's proof of the link. Disingenuine IDIOTS!

[NickB79]

11. Much less burden of proof is right

Basically, if you've got brown skin, you're liable in this guy's eyes! Pay up! <sarcasm>

[mmm]

4. Wha?

I try not to say 'Wha' anymore.
Sometimes I just cannot help it.

[ozone_man]

6. I heard this plan earlier this year IIRC.

It's about time someone has made a sensible decision about this. This idiotic plan seems to mesh with the fact that 70% of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 911.

I still don't like the idea that we can go into Iraq, destroy the infrastructure, and use their funds to rebuild it, enriching Haliburton and Bechtel in the process.

[GiovanniC]

7. I Think It's Funny

Bush makes this huge case against Iraq, constantly connecting dots between 9/11 and Iraq that were never there in order to justify his idiotic, illegitimate war. Then he freezes almost two billion dollars in Iraqi assets and gets mad when 9/11 families say some of that money should go to them because of Iraq's "involvement" in 9/11. Puts Bush between a rock and a hard place. The whole Bush team has been kinda squirming over this issue for a little bit now.

[David__77]

8. These families were used as pawns.

The right was "with them" is going up against Iraq, but now when it's time to go beyond talking the talk, they hang these people out to dry. Bush: "We support justice for victims of terrorism, so long as it doesn't come out of American corporate profits." He wants that money to go to insider businesses getting contracts in Iraq. Quite simple.

[Mika]

9. Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003

All of the money is for the Iraq "reconstruction" (a.k.a. Halliburton & Bushco) by Executive Order 13303

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/14mar20010800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2003/03-13412.htm


A DU thread on the subject,

Executive Order 13303 (Or, It's Mine!..all Mine!)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=284830

[Mika]

10. Executive Order 13315 September 04, 2003

http://thunderbay.indymedia.org/news/2003/09/8204.php

Executive order 13315, which Bush signed on 8/28/03, was published in the Federal Register on 9/3/03. It expands upon executive order 13303, and appears to be an asset grab under the guise of funding the Iraqi reconstruction, placing Iraq's state assets under control of the U.S. Treasury: in effect, the official looting of Iraq. Very convenient for a government which seeks to hand over control of Iraq to UN peacekeepers. This executive order has had zero corporate media coverage as of today.


Executive order 13315 can be found at
http://cryptome.org/eo13315.txt
or
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/03sep20030800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2003/03-22543.htm