WASHINGTON -- Three years ago, in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, U.S. President Bill Clinton launched a missile strike against a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory, claiming that it manufactured chemical weapons. It is now widely recognized that the United States acted hastily and mistakenly. Congress should right the wrong and compensate the victims.

Terrorism poses one of the most serious security threats to the U.S. today. On August 20, 1998, shortly after his grand jury testimony in the Lewinsky case, the president ordered attacks on training camps in Afghanistan and the El-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in North Khartoum, Sudan. The latter was targeted because of its alleged ties to terrorist Osama bin Laden. Four days later, the U.S. froze $24 million of Idris' assets.

The timing of the incident, given the president's political problems, was suspicious enough. Indeed, U.S. officials had previously approved a U.N. contract with the El-Shifa plant to ship veterinary medicine to Iraq as part of the oil-for-food program.