I'm sure that, like his father pardoning Casper Weinberger on Christmas Eve for Iran-Contra, Bush did this veto hoping nobody would notice. But then, Bush's legacy will be to be remembered as the Torture Administration.

In his surprise veto of the 2008 Defense Authorization Act over the Christmas holidays, President Bush issued a statement that -- at the request of Iraq -- he was vetoing the bill unless Congress let him waive the specific provisions vital to American victims of terrorism so as to shield Iraq. The main victims of this veto were 17 American POWs and 37 of their family members, to whom a federal court awarded a judgment against Iraq for torture committed during the 1991 Gulf War.

On July 7, 2003, a United States District Court ruled that Iraq was liable to the American POWs it tortured during the 1991 Gulf War, but astoundingly the Bush Administration has since that time tried to have the judgment set aside and Iraq absolved of accountability for torture.

When four years of efforts to have Administration officials simply meet  with them to resolve the matter proved fruitless, the POWs turned to Congress to right this wrong. Congress responded in the Defense Authorization Act, which included provisions making clear Congress' intent all along was to permit the POWs to hold Iraq accountable. President Bush vetoed this attempt to secure justice.

It is wrong to treat American veterans as the enemy, to litigate on the side of their torturers, and to refuse their pleas to meet to work out a compromise that serves the goals of the war, as well as the POWs' goals of deterring torture of American service personnel. And when American service personnel are dying for the rule of law in Iraq, it is wrong for Iraq to demand -- and the Administration to acquiesce in -- an escape from legal liability owed to American POWs.

The POWs will host a press conference in the Murrow Room of the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Friday, January 25th, from 9-11 a.m. The purpose of the conference is to put this veto in context, to discuss the national interest of the United States in holding torturers of American POWs accountable, to set the record straight as to why the veto was unnecessary with respect to their judgment, and to raise questions concerning the involvement of Iraq in this veto.