Senate Prepares To OK, Send To President
Appropriations Bill That Includes Leahy Amendment
To Name Iraqi War Victims Fund
For Slain Aid Worker Marla Ruzicka

WASHINGTON (Tuesday, May 10) – The Iraq spending bill that the U.S. Senate is expected to approve and send to the President’s desk late Tuesday includes Sen. Patrick Leahy’s provision that will name the Iraqi war victims program that she helped inspire for Marla Ruzicka, who was killed by a car bomb in Baghdad on April 15.

Leahy (D-Vt.) had offered the amendment, to name the program the "Marla Ruzicka Iraqi War Victims Fund," to the Iraq Supplemental Appropriations Bill.  The Senate will approve the final version of the bill Tuesday, and the President is expected to sign it.  

The program to be named for her was a collaboration between Ruzicka and Leahy, the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs.  Ruzicka visited Leahy in 2003 to propose the initiative.  Leahy subsequently negotiated the outlines of the program with the Defense and State Departments and then introduced and won enactment of the legislation that chartered the unprecedented aid program for war victims, first in Afghanistan, and later in Iraq.  These programs help the innocent victims of war in both countries in a variety of ways, ranging from medical needs to home and school construction.

Ruzicka devoted her life to facilitating the relief effort by traveling widely through both countries to document the needs of innocent war victims.  Nearly $20 million has been used for this effort in Afghanistan and Iraq since enactment of the Leahy measure in 2003, and another $10 million was recently allocated to replenish the fund to continue its work, for a total of nearly $30 million to date.

In remarks Tuesday on the Senate Floor, Leahy said, “Marla felt passionately that part of being an American is to acknowledge those who have suffered and to help their families piece their lives back together.  By showing them a compassionate face of America, she not only gave them hope, she also helped overcome some of the anger and resentment towards the United States.

“More than 90 percent of the casualties in World War I were soldiers,” Leahy continued.  “That changed in World War II, and since then it is overwhelmingly civilians who suffer the casualties. Yet while rosters are kept of the fallen soldiers, no official record is kept of the civilians.  This is wrong.  It denies those victims the dignity of being counted, the respect of being honored, and it prevents their families from receiving the help they need.  

“Marla forced us to face the consequences of our actions in ways that few others have, and, even more importantly, she made us do something about it,” said Leahy.  “That is an achievement of a lifetime.” 

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