From Holden:

I suppose the first sign of Georgie’s soft spot for torture was his childhood penchant for exploding frogs. One would think his glee at seeing other beings in pain might be overridden by his Support for Our Troops(!) but the WaPo’s Charles Lane tells us it ain’t so.

Seems the president who blithely ignored the $9 billion unaccounted for by the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq is doing his utmost to prevent Gulf War-era POWs tortured in Iraq from collecting the $959 million they won in a decision against America’s fifty-first state.

Plaintiffs’ counsel in the case of Acree v. Iraq (who are appealing to the Supreme Court) plan to hold a press conference on Thursday in which they will discuss:

— The U.S.’ commitment to the rule of law in wartime. Will the reconstruction of Iraq prevail over the laws written by Congress to give American victims of torture and murder the opportunity to hold the state sponsors of terrorism accountable?

— The truth of the President’s post Abu Ghraib statement that this nation will adhere to the obligations of the Geneva Conventions.

— The irony of Secretary Rumsfeld’s pledge to pay the Iraqi detainees abused at Abu Ghraib because “it is the right thing to do” while the American POWs, tortured in that same prison are cast aside.

— What White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan really meant when he said about the POWs: “No amount of money can truly compensate these brave men and women for the suffering that they went through at the hands of a very brutal regime, at the hands of Saddam Hussein.”

This could get interesting.