US Wants Iraq to Pay for American War Victims

Victims Worry Corrupt Iraqi Govt Will Never Actually Pay Them

With the US looking to trim down its expenses in the Iraq War, Congress is reportedly seeking a “transition” from compensating the victims of US attacks into something that the Iraqi government pays for.

USAID director for Iraq Christopher Crowley said it is the opinion of many in the US government that Iraq “has the means to pay its own way,” even if this means paying reparations for those harmed by US troops.

Crowley’s defense for this is that the victims “are Iraqi citizens” whether or not the US is the one who turned them into victims, and that puts the onus on the Iraqi government to provide the reparations.

While the opinion seems to be that the US is going to stop paying those reparations at any rate, many of the people still waiting for the often trivial sums of money fear that, in the even this does get taken over by the corrupt Iraqi government, they will simply never get paid.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.