<i>You</i> Pay Millions in Terrorists' Lawsuit Costs

You Pay Millions in Terrorists' Lawsuit Costs

NewsMax.com
Saturday, June 16, 2001

When foreign terrorists kill or injure U.S. citizens, it's the American taxpayer who gets stuck with the tab.

Last year, thanks to the free-spending souls in the U.S. Congress, Uncle Sam ladled out a whopping $200 million to victims of Iranian terrorists after the victims won judgments not against the U.S. but against Iran, according to USA Today.

And it's not that the feds can't seek to get the money from Iran or other offending nations - they won't even try.

This year it's going to get worse, the paper warned Thursday. Kin of the victims killed in the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut plan to sue Iran for $2 billion, and guess who will get stuck with that bill.

That $2 billion is chicken feed. The relatives of the 189 Americans who died on Pan Am Flight 103 when it exploded over Scotland in 1988 will be seeking $10 billion in their suit against Libya.

Said plaintiffs' attorney Jim Kreindler, ''I would prefer to get the money from Libya, but there is legislation that allows the United States to pay off the claims.''

Stuart Eizenstat, deputy Treasury secretary under former President Bill Clinton, told USA Today that lawyers are suing under two laws:

A 1996 statute lets Americans file suit in U.S. courts against seven countries on a State Department list of terrorist states.

A law enacted last year authorizes the government to pay some damages. The paper says that Congress has to approve new awards, but notes that it has in every case so far.

''It has become a race to the courthouse and then a race to get Congress to appropriate funds,'' Eizenstat said.

So far, those who have been conmpensated by the U.S. with settlements for amounts won by victims have included Terry Anderson, the Associated Press Beirut bureau chief held hostage for more than six years. He won $41.2 million in his suit against Lebanon, but you paid the judgement. Ditto for other hostages held in Lebanon who are to be given $65 million.

The family of a Marine colonel murdered in Lebanon in 1989 got $55.4 million, and families of three Americans killed by Iranian-backed terrorists in Israel during the 1990s are to receive nearly $50 million.

And just this week, two other former Beirut hostages, the Rev. Benjamin Weir and Frank Regier, sued Iran for $100 million.

No one claims that the victims are not entitled to compensation for what was done to them or their relatives, but it's only fair for the judgments to be paid by the defendant nations and not by the U.S. It's up to the federal government to see that this is the case.

Elaine Morton, a former State Department official, told USA Today: ''It's like a Pandora's box.''

Outrageously, its was your open-handed representatives in Congress who opened that box - and the door to the U.S. Treasury. It's time they closed it.

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