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Fri Feb 24 11:55:10 PST 2006

By Glenn Kessler 
The Washington Post 
Sunday, March 19, 2006; A01 

At
an emotional meeting this month at the State Department, steps from the
office of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a group of former
American hostages released by Iran a quarter of a century ago,
accompanied by lawyers and some relatives, confronted two of Rice's
most senior aides.
The families' grievance: Why has the Bush
administration, which has labeled Iran one of the world's most
dangerous regimes and has called the hostages American heroes, fought
their efforts to win damages for their ordeal from the Islamic republic?
The
answer is rooted in diplomatic obligations and a wariness about
favoring one set of terrorism victims over others. U.S. officials
express sympathy for the former hostages. But the administration has
thwarted every effort in the courts or in Congress to win a monetary
judgment against Iran, even as other victims of Iranian-linked
terrorism have secured hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation.
Those
attending the March 2 meeting said that Undersecretary of State R.
Nicholas Burns and legal adviser John B. Bellinger III tried to keep
the discussion civil but that anger spilled over. The wife of a former
hostage exclaimed at one point: "You are bloodless!" The meeting broke
up with Burns acknowledging the difficulty of the issues and saying he
would be open to further discussions.
But last week the State
Department objected when Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) tried to address
the issue in a House bill that would maintain sanctions against Iran
for its links to terrorism, forcing the lawmaker to withdraw his
proposal.
"We have 52 of our finest Americans who were held
hostage," Sherman said. "They go to court, and you know who appears
against them? The State Department."
The former hostages have
long tried to sue Iran over being blindfolded, tortured and held in
dank cells during 444 days in captivity. Earlier lawsuits were
dismissed because other countries generally cannot be sued in federal
court. But in 1996 Congress amended the foreign sovereign immunity law
to allow suits against countries listed as state sponsors of terrorism.
The former hostages sued under the new law, seeking $33 billion in
compensatory and punitive damages, and won a default judgment against
Iran in 2001.
But on the eve of a hearing to consider damages,
the Bush administration intervened, saying the suit violated an
agreement with Iran that had secured the hostages' release. The judge
threw out the suit in 2002 after Congress twice tried to intervene by
passing legislation favoring the hostages. The Supreme Court declined
to hear an appeal in 2004. Now the former hostages are seeking relief
from Congress.
"Every one of us has spoken the same line for 26
years: The Iranians cannot get away with what they did because it sends
the wrong message," said Richard H. Morefield, a former hostage and
50-year State Department veteran who was the embassy's consul general
when it was seized in 1979 and who still works at State, declassifying
records for the archives.
Beyond the plight of these hostages, the case raises difficult
issues.
Even
if a victim of terrorism wins at trial, it is almost impossible to
collect damages. Iran's assets in the United States, for instance, are
worth only about $20 million, mainly diplomatic property, according to
State Department officials. So Congress in 2000 passed legislation
authorizing the payment of $380 million in U.S. Treasury funds to
claimants in cases involving 14 victims who were held hostage or killed
by Iranian-supported groups such as Hezbollah, according to the
Congressional Research Service. Lawmakers ordered the State Department
to try to get that money reimbursed by Iran someday.
Other
victims of terrorism, however, have received nothing, leading some
lawmakers to conclude that it is inequitable -- and costly to U.S.
taxpayers -- to carve out exceptions on a piecemeal basis.
"The
problem is you have had some greedy lawyers" who have blocked efforts
at a comprehensive solution because it would limit a big payout, said
Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), who wrote to Rice last month to urge the
administration to come up with a "fair, just and equitable system." He
said: "You have to have something that cuts the lawyers out."
The
administration proposed a plan in 2003 that would have given any victim
of terrorism $262,000. But only one hearing was held in the Senate, and
the idea has languished, largely because of complaints that the amount
was too low.
The former hostages of Iran have benefited from two
laws, passed in 1980 and 1986, that among other things gave them tax
breaks, paid their educational expenses and provided a "token detention
benefit" of $50 for each day in captivity. In bringing a lawsuit, they
must overcome the terms of the diplomatic agreement that led to their
release but has also put the State Department directly in their path.
The
agreement, known as the Algiers Accords, codified the 1981 deal between
the United States and Iran under which the hostages were released,
billions of dollars in Iranian assets were unfrozen, and an arbitration
tribunal was established in the Netherlands to settle claims between
the two countries. In the first part of the document, the United States
pledged that it "will be the policy of the United States not to
intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran's
internal affairs." Elsewhere, the United States pledged to "bar and
preclude" any claims filed by the hostages against Iran.
For the
hostages, the situation is rich in irony. The State Department, in
legal arguments and on Capitol Hill, has maintained that allowing the
hostages' case to go forward will violate the Algiers Accords. But Rice
has announced a $75 million plan to bolster democracy in Iran and to
foster opposition to the theocracy that controls the country. The
hostages say Rice's program violates the prohibition on interfering in
Iran's affairs; Iran has also filed a complaint with the United States
through the Swiss Embassy, which handles U.S. interests in Tehran.
"This
administration has not been shy about breaking international
agreements," said Barry Rosen, who was press attache at the U.S.
Embassy and who now heads the Afghanistan Education Project at Columbia
University's Teachers College. "The administration appears to be in
contradiction of itself. It seems to me the Algiers Accords should be
dead and buried."
Rosen, angry that others have "laid claim to
millions and millions of dollars of compensation," added: "This may
sound weird, but if I were made aware of that agreement, I would have
stayed in Iran."
U.S. officials say that supporting democracy
does not amount to interference under international law. And they say
abrogating the Algiers Accords, though not a formal treaty, would be
viewed overseas as a serious breach of international norms, harming
U.S. interests. U.S. banks and companies have been able to settle
claims with Iran because of the accords, while the United States has
been forced to pay about $900 million to Iran for contract violations
and property damage.
William J. Daugherty, a CIA employee who
spent 425 days in solitary confinement during the crisis and is now a
college professor, said the State Department is being "deceitful and
dishonest." He added that "you can't argue that getting people to rise
up against their government is not interfering in a country's affairs."
He said that, after taxes, the check he received under the 1986
detention benefit was $17,000. "This came from the U.S. taxpayer, which
none of us wanted to happen," he said. "We have always wanted Iran to
pay for what it did."
Spokesman J. Adam Ereli said that the State
Department supported the 1980 and 1986 measures giving direct benefits
to the former hostages and that now the administration favors a
"comprehensive program" for victims of international terrorism,
including the former hostages.
"These brave people are members of
the State Department family and are true heroes," Ereli added. "We are
committed to having a full and open discussion about any issues they
want to raise, and we will do our best to address them.
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