Journalist's Three-Month Iraq Ordeal Over

Jolie Rouge

Journalist's Three-Month Iraq Ordeal Over

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060330/...rroll_released

BAGHDAD, Iraq - American reporter Jill Carroll was set free Thursday, nearly three months after she was kidnapped in an ambush that killed her translator. She said she had been treated well.

Carroll, 28, was dropped off near the Iraqi Islamic Party offices. She walked inside, and people there called American officials, Iraqi police said.

"I was treated well, but I don't know why I was kidnapped," Carroll said in a brief interview on Baghdad television.

Carroll was kidnapped Jan. 7 in Baghdad's western Adil neighborhood while going to interview Sunni Arab politician Adnan al-Dulaimi. Her translator was killed in the attack about 300 yards from al-Dulaimi's office.

The previously unknown Revenge Brigades claimed responsibility. Even though the group threatened twice in videotapes to kill Carroll, she said, "They never hit me. They never even threatened to hit me."

The Italian news agency ANSA reported that Carroll underwent a medical checkup at the American hospital in the Green Zone.

During the TV interview, Carroll wore a light green Islamic headscarf and a gray Arabic robe.

"I'm just happy to be free. I want to be with my family," she was heard to say under the Arabic voiceover.

Carroll said she was kept in a furnished room with a window and a shower, but she did not know where she was.

"I felt I was not free. It was difficult because I didn't know what would happen to me," she said.

She said she was allowed to watch TV once and read a newspaper once.

Asked about the circumstances of her release, she said, "They just came to me and said we're going. They didn't tell me what was going on."

Police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi said Carroll was released near an office of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the main Sunni political organization, in western Baghdad.

"She is healthy and we handed her over to the Americans," party member Nasir al-Ani told The Associated Press.

In Berlin, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she was "pleased" by the news of Carroll's release.

"This is something that people have across the world worked for and prayed for and I think we are all very pleased and happy to hear of her release," Rice said.

Carroll's family said they were elated at news of her release. Her father, Jim, said at his house in Chapel Hill, N.C., that he was waiting to learn more about his daughter before making travel plans to reunite with her.

"Obviously, we are thrilled and relieved that she has been released," he said on the porch of his home. "We want to thank all that have supported and prayed for her. We want to especially thank The Christian Science Monitor, who did so much work to keep her image alive in Iraq."

During Carroll's months in captivity, she had appeared twice in videos broadcast on Arab television, pleading for her life.

Her captors had demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraq by Feb. 26 and said Carroll would be killed if that did not happen. The date came and went with no word about her fate.

On Feb. 28, Iraq's Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said Carroll was being held by the Islamic Army in Iraq, the insurgent group that freed two French journalists in 2004 after four months in captivity.

She was last seen in a videotape broadcast Feb. 9 by the private Kuwaiti television station Al-Rai. Her twin sister, Katie, issued a plea for her release on Al-Arabiya television late Wednesday.

News of her release also left friends overjoyed.

"I don't know whether to cry or skip down my street," Jackie Spinner, a friend who is a reporter for The Washington Post, told ABC's "Good Morning America."

Carroll went to the Middle East in 2002 after being laid off from a newspaper job. She had long dreamed of covering a war.

In American Journalism Review last year, Carroll wrote that she moved to Jordan in late 2002, six months before the war started, "to learn as much about the region as possible before the fighting began."

"There was bound to be plenty of parachute journalism once the war started, and I didn't want to be a part of that," she wrote.

Carroll has had work from Iraq published in the Monitor, AJR, U.S. News & World Report, ANSA and other publications. She has been interviewed often on National Public Radio.

ANSA's editor-in-chief, Pierluigi Magnaschi, wrote Carroll an e-mail, telling her: "Welcome back, Jill. We worried about you and rooted for you for a long time, with all our strength."

Magnaschi invited her to Rome saying, "You deserve this stupendous Rome that is blossoming into spring. We await you."

On Wednesday, Katie Carroll said her sister is a "wonderful person" who is an "innocent woman."

"I've been living a nightmare, worrying if she is hurt or ill," she in a statement read on the Al-Arabiya network.

Carroll is the fourth Western hostage to be freed in eight days. On March 23, U.S. and British soldiers, acting on intelligence gained from a detainee, freed Briton Norman Kember, 74, and Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, from a house west of Baghdad.

The three belonged to the Christian Peacemakers Teams group and had been kidnapped with an American colleague, Tom Fox, 54, on Nov. 26. Fox was killed and his body was dumped in western Baghdad on March 9.

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

Questions About Carroll's Captivity
By Howard Kurtz -- Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 31, 2006; 8:36 AM

I spoke to David Bloom days before he died and then covered his memorial service. I wrote about the death of Michael Kelly. I said goodbye to Bob Woodruff before he went to Iraq and got badly injured by a roadside bomb.

In short, death and violence involving the brave journalists who have gone to Iraq is an everpresent part of my beat. And yet, like many people, I was especially floored by the kidnapping of Jill Carroll and greatly relieved by her release yesterday.

Reporters for big news organizations, after all, generally travel with security details, while Carroll is a 28-year-old freelancer who went to Baghdad on her own, became a stringer for the Christian Science Monitor and clearly was bent on understanding Iraqi culture.

This is a courageous young woman.

I must say, though, that I found her first interview yesterday rather odd. Carroll seemed bent on giving her captors a positive review, going on about how well they treated her, how they gave her food and let her go to the bathroom. And they never threatened to hit her. Of course, as we all saw in those chilling videos, they did threaten to kill her. And they shot her Iraqi translator to death.

Why make a terrorist group who put her family and friends through a terrible three-month ordeal sound like they were running a low-budget motel chain?

Now perhaps this is unfair, for there is much we do not know. We don't know why Carroll was kidnapped and why she was abruptly released. She says she doesn't either, but surely she must have gotten some clues about her abductors' outlook and tactics during her 82-day captivity. Maybe she was just shell-shocked right after being let go. Maybe she won't feel comfortable speaking out until she's back on American soil. But this is what people are buzzing about.

Despite the happy ending, Carroll's kidnapping has driven home how dangerous Iraq remains for Western journalists, who admit it's getting increasingly difficult to do their jobs, even as they challenge the administration's claims that they are excessively focused on violence and negative news.

As CBS's Lara Logan told me in a CNN interview this week, "When journalists are free to move around this country, then they will be free to report on everything that's going on. But as long as you're a prisoner of the terrible security situation here, then that's going to be reflected in your coverage . . . .

"You don't think that I haven't been to the U.S. military and the State Department and the embassy and asked them over and over again, let's see the good stories, show us some of the good things that are going on? Oh, sorry, we can't take to you that school project, because if you put that on TV, they're going to be attacked about, the teachers are going to be killed, the children might be victims of attack. Oh, sorry, we can't show this reconstruction project because then that's going to expose it to sabotage. And the last time we had journalists down here, the plant was attacked . I mean, security dominates every single thing that happens in this country."

Let's be grateful that Jill Carroll didn't wind up the latest victim.

Adding to the mystery:

"In a videotape posted Thursday on the Internet , made before her release, Ms. Carroll denounced the American presence in Iraq and praised the insurgents who were fighting here," says the New York Times .

"In the video, Ms. Carroll smiled, laughed once and gestured in a seemingly relaxed manner, saying she felt guilty about being released while so many Iraqis were still suffering.

"Ms. Carroll, still in captivity but apparently knowing she would be released, denounced what she described as the 'lies' told by the American government and predicted that the insurgents would defeat the Americans in Iraq.

" 'I feel guilty. I also feel that it just shows that the mujahedeen are good people fighting an honorable fight, a good fight. While the Americans are here, the occupying forces, you know, treating the people in a very, very bad way. So I can't be happy totally for my freedom because there are people still suffering in prisons, in very difficult situations.' . . .

"Ms. Carroll's seeming sympathy for her captors suggested either that she was pretending to gain her release or that, after suffering weeks of extreme duress, she had fallen under the sway of her kidnappers."

The Washington Post became part of the story:

What a phone call.

Monitor Editor Richard Bergenheim says:

Think Progress rips John Podhoretz for "attacking her mental state" with this comment:


Little Green Footballs drips with disdain: "She says the terrorists treated her well. Her interpreter, murdered during the kidnapping, was not available for comment."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...033100473.html

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

((continued ))


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...3100473_3.html


[i]Not sure why an article about the release of a journalist/hostage in Iraq suddenly turns to the immigration here and other issues being debated on the Hill ... [i]


Meanwhile, the GOP's split over immigration seems to be getting worse:

"House conservatives yesterday issued a dire warning to President Bush and Republican leadership that they will pay a devastating political price if they proceed with a guest-worker program or anything resembling amnesty for illegal aliens before securing the borders and enforcing existing immigration laws," says the Washington Times .

" 'They will remember in November,' Rep. J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Republican, said of voters nationwide. 'And many of those who have stood with our Republican majority in the last decade are not only angry, many of them plan to be absent from the polls' this year when the entire House and one-third of the Senate is up for re-election."

And guess which Republican is taking it on the chin?

"As he prepares to leave the Senate and position himself for a presidential bid, Bill Frist faces mounting criticism that he has proved an ineffectual majority leader whose legislative agenda increasingly is dictated by his White House ambitions," says the Los Angeles Times .

"Complaints about the patrician Tennessean by fellow Republicans intensified this week, sparked by his decision to force Senate debate on illegal immigration. Some GOP lawmakers say his move spotlighted a squabble within the party over a hot-button issue in an election year."

Frist's Senate, you may recall, passed a pretty weak lobbying bill the other day. Arianna Huffington has her own ideas about lobbying reform, and makes "a very simple suggestion, one most Americans can relate to -- and I do mean relate: Let's make it illegal for family members of legislators to work as lobbyists. The last few years have seen a surge in registered lobbyists with blood or marital ties to our nation's leaders. . . .

"To guarantee success they want their All Access Passes to include admission to the bedrooms and kitchen tables of those in power. Which is why a lobbyist's strongest resume-builder is not some relevant degree or work experience, but sharing DNA or a primary residence with a Capitol Hill power player. Among those lobbyists making friends and influencing family members in our nation's capital are Scott Hatch, and Joshua Hastert, the sons of Senator Orrin Hatch and House Speaker Denny Hastert; Abigail and Amy Blunt, the wife and daughter of GOP Whip Roy Blunt; Kimberly Dorgan and Bob Dole, the spouses of Senators Byron Dorgan and Elizabeth Dole; and Phyllis Landrieu, Sen. Mary Landrieu's aunt.

"The silliest symptom of this epidemic of nepotism on the Potomac has got to be the unlikely rise of Chet Lott, the son of erstwhile Majority Leader Trent Lott. Before getting into the lobbying game, Chet worked as a Domino's Pizza franchisee -- world renowned as the perfect training ground for future Washington power brokers. Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, Domino's. Now instead of taking orders for extra cheese, he pushes the piping-hot agendas of clients like BellSouth, munitions maker Day & Zimmerman, and the National Association of Air Traffic Specialists."


Of course, it's probably unconstitutional to deprive someone of earning a living. And what do you do about a professional lobbyist who happens to marry a congressman?

Dick Polman offers a history lesson in explaining the importance of the Democrats' new national security plan:

"The goal is: No more jokes about John Kerry's 2004 flipflop gaffe, 'I voted for it before I voted against it.' No more laughing about how puny Michael Dukakis looked riding around in a tank (1988). No more references to Jimmy Carter's botched attempt to rescue the Iranian hostages, complete with photos of the charred choppers in the desert (1980). No more footage of George McGovern and his peace movement pals (1972). The goal is to get skeptical Americans to skip the past 30 years, and think of today's Democrats as heirs to the tough-guy Democratic traditions of FDR, Harry Truman, and JFK.

"By releasing the somewhat sketchy agenda, 'Real Security: Protecting America and Restoring Our Leadership in the World,' Senate and House Democratic leaders are clearly trying to avoid the party's fatal errors of 2002 -- when, in the midst of congressional elections being staged in the shadow of 9/11, and with President Bush prepping the case for war in Iraq, Democrats basically tried to change the subject and run instead on domestic issues. They paid dearly on election day."

At Public Eye, Brian Montopoli questions the stance of conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, who told Time's Michael Ware that he should not have spent time reporting with Iraqi insurgents:

"Hewitt says he's 'fascinated by the question of whether or not it's ever good journalism to consort with the enemy in search of interesting stories,' and to explore said question, he compares Ware's reporting to that of a theoretical World War II reporter who has been given access to the Nazis. Hewitt seems to believe that exploring the true nature of enemies like the Nazis, or the jihadists, is absurd and unnecessary, since he's quite comfortable, as he said above in reference to the jihadists, that they're evil. And, really, what more do you need to know? But Ware sees things differently:

" I mean, imagine, okay, we know what we know about the German regime, or the Nazi party. We are inundated with their propaganda. We're listening to their chatter. We're getting their side of the story. Could you imagine having an objective view, go in and come out, and say this is what [it] really looks like? This is what it really feels like? This is what people in their quiet moments behind closed doors will actually tell you? Now imagine the value of that . . . .

"Hewitt's fear seems to be that because of his exposure to the enemy, Ware will report propaganda that ends up being harmful to America's cause. But while many of Ware's stories have painted the war in a negative light, it's hard to believe that's because al-Zarqawi is whispering sweet nothings in his ear. Consider the fact that when Ware came into possession of an audio tape of Zarqawi that showed division between Zarqawi and a leading Iraqi Sunni organization, he printed its contents -- Zarqawi's 'dirty laundry,' as he put it. And he earned a death threat for his trouble."

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Jolie Rouge

Report: Carroll Threatened Before Release
By MARIAM FAM, Associated Press Writer
4 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Jill Carroll's kidnappers reportedly warned her before her release that she might be killed if she cooperated with the Americans or went to the Green Zone, saying it was infiltrated by insurgents.

The freelance writer for The Christian Science Monitor, who was freed by her captors Thursday and dropped off at a branch office of the Iraqi Islamic Party, was later escorted to the Green Zone by the U.S. military, the newspaper said Friday.

At first, she was reluctant to go, but a Monitor writer in Baghdad, Scott Peterson, convinced her it was safe, the newspaper said.

The Monitor quoted her family as saying that her kidnappers had warned her against talking to the Americans or going to the Green Zone. They told her it was "infiltrated by the mujahedeen," the newspaper said.

Her captors, calling themselves the Revenge Brigades, had demanded the release of all female detainees in Iraq by Feb. 26 and said Carroll would be killed otherwise.

In a video purportedly from her kidnappers that was posted on the Internet, her abductors said Carroll was released because "the American government met some of our demands by releasing some of our women from prison." The video was found on an Islamic Web site where such material has appeared before.

But U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said Thursday there was no connection between the recent release of several female Iraqi detainees and Carroll's freedom.

"No U.S. person entered into any arrangements with anyone. By U.S. person I mean the United States mission," he said.

"What we did before had no connection with Jill Carroll," Khalilzad said. "We still have a few female detainees — four — and that's all I can say on that."

The Monitor's editor, Richard Bergenheim, also said no money had been exchanged for Carroll's release. "We simply know she was dropped off at the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters," he said.

Carroll, who was kidnapped Jan. 7 in Baghdad, said Thursday she was not harmed by her captors and added that she did not know why she was released.

Also on the Internet video, Carroll is shown answering questions, presumably from her captors, and saying that Iraqi insurgents were "only trying to defend their country ... to stop an illegal and dangerous and deadly occupation."

"So I think people need to understand in America how difficult life is here for the normal, average Iraqis ... how terrifying it is for most people to live here every day because of the occupation," she said on the video.

Bergenheim said Friday that Carroll's parents, who spoke to her about the video, told him it was "conducted under duress."

"What emerged was that they actually started filming this tape the night before and then there was a power outage. Jill had been told the questions, asked to translate them from Arabic into English," he told ABC's "Good Morning America."

"When you're making a video and having to recite certain things with three men with machine guns standing over you, you're probably going to say exactly what you're told to say," Bergenheim added.

The U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Baghdad declined to comment on the video, saying all queries regarding Carroll were being handled by her family and the Monitor.

Iraq's Interior Ministry said it had no information regarding Carroll's departure plans, which an Iraqi official said were being handled by the Americans.

Bergenheim said the 28-year-old Carroll is "emotionally fragile" after 82 days in captivity and will begin her journey home as soon as possible.

"Yesterday was way too soon. I think they're investigating whether she could leave today," he told NBC's "Today" show. "But her family wants to make sure that she's strong enough, emotionally and otherwise, to take this step."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060331/...IyBHNlYwMxNjk2

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

Chiizii

Over at the CSM Ms. Carroll has a stated that she was coerced into saying how she was treated. That makes much more sense to me. I doubted her words from the get-go.

From Article at CSM

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Jolie Rouge

Carroll Reunited With Family in Boston
By GLEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

BOSTON - Journalist Jill Carroll was back on U.S. soil Sunday, tearfully embracing her parents and twin sister after 82 days as a hostage in Iraq that she said gave her a deep appreciation for the myriad simple joys of freedom. "I finally feel like I am alive again. I feel so good," Carroll said. "To be able to step outside anytime, to feel the sun directly on your face — to see the whole sky. These are luxuries that we just don't appreciate every day."

The 28-year-old Christian Science Monitor reporter arrived at Boston's Logan International Airport just after noon, and was quickly driven away in a police-escorted limousine to the newspaper's headquarters.

She didn't step out into public view, but reports on the Monitor's Web site, along with photos, showed a joyful and tearful reunion with her parents and twin sister.

Carroll has said her kidnappers confined her to a small, soundproof room with frosted windows before she was released Thursday after nearly three months in captivity.

She was seized Jan. 7 in one of Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhoods, near where a Sunni Arab official had agreed to meet her for an interview that never took place. The gunmen who abducted her killed her Iraqi translator.

She was accompanied on the flight by Monitor colleagues, who described her seven-hour flight back to the U.S.

Carroll was touched to find a red rose on her dinner tray, the Monitor reported. Later, a flight attendant dropped off a copy of Friday's USA Today in which she saw her own face framed by a black head scarf. It was a photo of the giant poster that had been erected in Rome.

She was tickled to see pictures of her family and kissed the photo of her father, Jim Carroll. "He looks good," she said, and ran her fingers over the photo of her mom, Mary Beth, the Monitor reported.

Editor Richard Bergenheim said colleagues were grateful Carroll was home safe. "When Jill is ready, the Monitor will begin to tell her story and we will also hold a press conference where she will speak. But we will not be making any further statements on Sunday and hope that the Carroll family's privacy will be respected," Bergenheim said in a statement.

Photographs of the reunion released by the Monitor showed Carroll with her family, her sister stroking her hair, her father casting eyes upward as he held her tightly, her mother staring intently into her face.

Carroll left the Ramstein Air Base in southwestern Germany on Saturday after arriving from Balad Air Base in Baghdad. She strongly disavowed statements she had made during captivity in Iraq and shortly after her release, saying she had been repeatedly threatened.

In a video recorded before she was freed and posted by her captors on an Islamist Web site, Carroll spoke out against the U.S. military presence. On Saturday, she said the recording was made under duress. "During my last night in captivity, my captors forced me to participate in a propaganda video. They told me I would be released if I cooperated. I was living in a threatening environment, under their control, and wanted to go home alive. So I agreed," she said in a statement.

"Things that I was forced to say while captive are now being taken by some as an accurate reflection of my personal views. They are not."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who was held prisoner for more than five years during the Vietnam War, said Carroll found herself in "a terrible, terrible position" and said Americans should view her taped statements critical of the U.S. military presence in Iraq in that context.

"We understand when you're held a captive in that situation that you do things under duress. God bless her, and we're glad she's home," McCain said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Carroll, who has studied Arabic, attracted a huge amount of sympathy during her ordeal, and a wide variety of groups in the Middle East, including the Islamic militant group Hamas, appealed for her release.

Aside from the short interview aired on Iraqi television upon her release, Carroll had not shown herself in public prior to a brief appearance Saturday.

The kidnappers, calling themselves the Revenge Brigades, had demanded the release of all female detainees in Iraq by Feb. 26 or Carroll would be killed. U.S. officials did release some female detainees at the time, but said it had nothing to do with the demands.

In the statement, Carroll also disavowed an interview she gave to the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni Arab organization in whose offices she was dropped off upon her release. She said the party had promised her the interview would not be aired "and broke their word."

Carroll has said her kidnappers confined her to a small, soundproof room with frosted, opaque windows.

The Michigan native graduated in 1999 from the University of Massachusetts with a degree in journalism. She was freelancing for the Monitor when she was kidnapped, but was hired as a staff writer about a week later to ensure she had financial benefits, Bergenheim said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060402/...kxBHNlYwN0bQ--

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

YNKYH8R

It's sad that her work would have been relatively unknown had she not been captured. I wonder if she realized that her work wasn't going to get that kind of attention until she 'disappeared'. I mean, she wasn't found dead. And she had strong ties to the Iraqi community....probably nothing but it's something that crossed my mind.

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"The world will look up and shout save us; and I'll whisper no." R U WE TAH DID?

Jolie Rouge

Her friend and translator, Alan Enwiya was murdered in front of her eyes during the abduction - I find it hard to believe that eigther one would have agreed to that as a means to further her career.

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?

YNKYH8R

Hey..I said it was probably nothing.

__________________
"The world will look up and shout save us; and I'll whisper no." R U WE TAH DID?

Jolie Rouge

now if she was a politician .....

__________________
Laissez les bon temps rouler! Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.** a 4 day work week & sex slaves ~ I say Tyt for PRESIDENT! Not to be taken internally, literally or seriously ....Suki ebaynni IS THAT BETTER ?