Bush bids to block payouts to tortured soldiers

The White House is trying to block a compensation payout to American soldiers who were tortured in Iraqi prisons during the first Gulf War, it emerged today.

Officials want the money to be spent on the reconstruction of Iraq, crippled by the recent war.

In a federal court ruling last year 17 men were awarded the right to claim from hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen Iraqi assets.

But the Bush administration has launched a challenge to overturn the ruling.

The men claim that their torture included beatings, burnings, mock executions and threats of castration or mutilation.

Lieut. Col. Dale Storr, whose Air Force A-10 fighter jet was shot down in February 1991, told the New York Times: “I’ve always tried to keep in the back of my mind that we were never going to see any of the money.

“But it goes beyond frustration when I see our government trying to pretend that this whole case never happened.”

Col Storr was held by the Iraqis for 33 days and suffered beatings and threats of having his fingers amputated if he did not talk.

Retired Air Force Colonel David Eberly, whose F-15 fighter was shot down over Iraq, told the newspaper: “The administration wants £54 billion for Iraq. The money in our case is just a drop of blood in the bucket.”

Justice and State Department officials said that the case could not be allowed to hinder the multi-billion dollar effort to reconstruct Iraq.

The White House said that Congress had decided that the former assets of Iraq were now to be spent on reconstruction.

On the eve of the American-led invasion in March, President George Bush signed an executive order confiscating Iraqi assets and converting them into American assets.

After Saddam Hussein was ousted by the invasion, Iraq was removed from a list of countries liable for past human rights abuses.