False Dichotomies

U.S. prisoners of war during the first Gulf War "are criticizing the Bush administration for fighting their compensation claims while planning to compensate the Iraqi victims of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison," reports The Hill. They're responding to Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld's remarks last week to the Senate Armed Services Committee that he's "seeking a way to provide appropriate compensation to those [Iraqi] detainees... one way or another." The former U.S. POWs won a $1 billion settlement against the former Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. But the Bush administration has appealed the ruling, saying it "wants to avoid draining funds from the new Iraqi government... the money is needed to help rebuild the country."