Re: It's the Message, Not the Money

Date: June 16, 2004

"POWs decry ruling favoring Iraq

A Lynnwood High School graduate is among 17 tortured POWs whose $959 million judgement against Iraq was overturned in court.

By Brian Kelly Herald Writer

It was about the message, not the money.

Even so, it's hard for a group of 17 American prisoners of war to not be angry about a recent Court of Appeals ruling that took away almost a $1 billion judgment the soldiers had won in a lawsuit against overthrown Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Daniel Stamaris Jr., a 1978 graduate of Lynnwood High School, was one of the 17 POWs from the first Gulf War who with their families filed the lawsuit against Iraq. All of the 17 POWs said they had been tortured after their capture. They filed suit in April 2002 to hold Saddam Hussein's regime accountable.

In July 2003, a federal judge ruled in their favor, and awarded more than $959 million in damages to the American POWs. But the judgment was later reversed.

The Bush administration fought the POWs' lawsuit, saying the assets of Iraq were needed to rebuild the country.

Tony Onorato, a Washington, D.C., attorney for the POWs and their families, blasted the decision as unfair, and said it shredded the public record detailing the horrors faced by the prisoners during their captivity.

"These are guys who fought their entire lives for this government," Onorato said, adding that seven are still on active duty, and one is getting ready for a third tour in Iraq.

The case wasn't about money. Instead, Onorato said, it was meant to give notice to other countries that would face consequences if they mistreated U.S. men and woman captured during war.

"You cannot torture U.S. POWs without there being repercussions," he said.

Stamaris was taken prisoner after his Black Hawk helicopter was shot down while it was on a search-and-rescue mission. He was a staff sergeant at the time and the crew chief on the helicopter that was searching for the downed pilot of a U.S. F-16 near Basra.

Five of the eight soldiers aboard the Black Hawk were killed when it crashed. Stamaris was badly hurt. His left foot, ankle and hip were broken, along with several ribs.

He was left to die by the Iraqi soldiers who first found him, but a group of Republican Guard later returned to the crash site and took Stamaris prisoner. POWs captured by Iraq in the Gulf War were severely beaten, starved, shocked with electrical devices, threatened with castration and forced to undergo mock executions, the men said in the lawsuit.

Stamaris said his captors threatened to castrate him, and his guards also said they would cut off his leg. He was repeatedly beaten by Iraqi soldiers, abandoned twice to die, and later taken around and displayed like a war trophy during his eight days as a POW.

"They drove through the streets, people would spit on me, hit me in the head," he said. "At one point, we went into a courtyard and an Iraqi major told me he was going to kill me. He told me he had two sons killed in the war.

"I said a quick prayer. I just said, 'Lord whatever your will be, so be it.' And I just put myself in God's hands and on down the road we went."

Stamaris, now 44 and a resident of Homestead, Ala., left the Army on a disability retirement in 1994. His parents still live in Lynnwood. His group had planned to use most of the money they won in the lawsuit for the American POW/MIA Foundation, an organization they formed last year to help the families of prisoners or soldiers who are missing in action.

Onorato noted as a sad irony that 13 of the POWs had been held at Abu Ghraib prison, where it was recently revealed that Iraqi detainees had been tortured and abused by American soldiers. Administration officials have proposed paying settlements to Iraqi prisoners.

"There is an incredible irony - and an incredible unfairness - that we would pay Abu Ghraib Iraqis with taxpayer dollars, while at the same time the Department of Justice, using taxpayer dollars, would go to court and tell tortured Americans they can't access Iraqi assets," Onorato said.

"It's just a double standard, to say the least," Stamaris said in a phone interview from his Alabama home.

"We were tortured and terrorized," he said. "There's a big gap between mistreatment, and being tortured and terrorized like we were."

Onorato said the group is still considering its legal options since the Court of Appeals decision earlier this month that upheld the ruling against the POWs' lawsuit. The group has also been in close contact with its supporters in Congress, including Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

Without a judgment that makes foreign countries take notice that they can't mistreat U.S. prisoners, countries may feel free to torture American soldiers who are captured in future wars, Onorato said.

"Iraq must be the ones who pay," Onorato said. "It's the only way the deterrent effect works."

Reporter Brian Kelly: 425-339-3422 or kelly[at]heraldnet[dot]com.
© 2003 The Daily Herald Co., Everett, Wash. "