600 more freed from Iraqi prison
BAGHDAD, Iraq – The U.S. military freed more than 600 detainees Friday from Abu Ghraib prison, the largest release since officials announced their intention to cut the population in half and send people home to their families.
Hundreds of Iraqis packed the shoulder of the highway outside the prison, waiting for relatives and loved ones to emerge from behind the barbed wire and thick stone walls. Mothers and wives clutched the pictures and identification numbers of their detained sons and husbands, hoping they would match those on a list of prisoners to be released.
“My husband is not a criminal and he is still here,” said Rajaa Abdullah, 53, whose husband’s number was on the list. “Where is justice? Where is the freedom that Bush claims he brought to the Iraqis?”
Heifa Naser, 50, Abdullah’s sister-in-law, who had waited in vain for the number of her husband, interrupted with tears and a choked voice. “We hate them,” she said. “If I can, I’ll kill them by myself but I know I can’t. We have only tears, and that’s all. We like the American people, but the problem is their government. They are just like us, without any power. We saw them carrying banners and having demonstrations against the war.”
As a caravan of U.S. soldiers passed in front of her, Naser shouted in Arabic, “May God curse you.”
Seven U.S. soldiers have been charged with abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib, a 280-acre compound 20 miles west of Baghdad that first became notorious for torture and mass execution under the rule of President Saddam Hussein. The U.S. military said this week that it would vacate the prison by August, and President Bush has said he wants to see it demolished.
The U.S. military has released more than 2,000 prisoners in the past month and plans to free another 800 by June 30, when occupation officials are to turn over limited authority to an interim Iraqi government.
Col. Karl Goetzke, the Army staff judge advocate who oversees the detainee release board for Abu Ghraib, said a team of senior officers has reviewed case files of more than 7,500 detainees. Those not deemed to pose a security threat, he said, would be freed.
Friday’s release got under way around 10 a.m., when 18 U.S. soldiers in riot gear came out the front gate of the prison and started pushing people back. Led by a convoy of Humvees, 13 buses rolled out of the prison compound.
Another convoy fell in behind, as two helicopters hovered overhead.
When relatives, some of whom had been waiting since dawn, caught sight of the first bus, they surged across the highway, blocking traffic as they chanted, “Jihad for the sake of the victimized,” “America is the enemy of God” and “Death for America.”