Bert Sacks speaking with the media

On July 6, 2005, VITW was back in federal court before US District Judge Bates in the continuing effort of the US Treasury and OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) to force VITW to pay a $20,000 fine for bringing medicine to children in Iraq during one trip in the 1990s. VITW supporters, including many who travelled to Iraq filled most of the courtroom seats. Ultimately the judge said he was going to decide rather quickly if OFAC would be required to produce their whole file on VITW or not and then he would decide the case in the next few weeks.

We had hoped that the judge wanted to question the government about the May 2005 reports from the US Senate that hundreds of millions of barrels of oil were transported from Iraq to US oil companies in 2000-2002 in violation of the sanctions.