Rescued POWs in jail shuffle

WASHINGTON - Seven rescued American prisoners of war were held in separate cells in Baghdad for most of their time as captives, but were moved as United States forces advanced on the Iraqi capital.

For 12 to 15 days, they could hear the nightly bombing raids as US warplanes pounded Baghdad.

They were taken to another location after the prison was rattled by a powerful explosion about 45m from the building, the Washington Post reported.

It was the first of many moves.

The rescued prisoners said they stayed at seven or eight places, sometimes Government buildings, sometimes private residences.

In their first interviews after they were found late on Sunday night in a house near Samarra, about 60km north of Baghdad, the former prisoners described their capture and imprisonment to reporters on board a C-130 Hercules transport plane evacuating them from Iraq.

Sergeant James Riley, 31, a New Zealand citizen, who now lives in Pennsauken, New Jersey was among five members of a 15-member military maintenance company taken on March 23 when their convoy made a wrong turn in southern Iraq and was ambushed.

Nine US soldiers died in the battle, and four were rescued the same day by US forces.

Another one, Private Jessica Lynch, was rescued from a hospital in Nassariya on April 1.

Riley, Specialist Shoshana Johnson, 30, Specialist Edgar Hernandez, 21, Specialist Joseph Hudson, 23, and Private First Class Patrick Miller, 23, were captured.

The other two prisoners were 227th Aviation Regiment pilots, Chief Warrant Officers Ronald Young Jnr, 26, and David Williams, 30.

After their Apache helicopter came down on March 23, Williams and Young were captured by farmers who dumped them into a truck and set off for the nearest police station or Army base.

"They would stop and show all these people they had caught Americans," Williams said.

The Washington Post said all the Americans were interrogated in prison and were sometimes blindfolded during the questioning.

They were stripped of their belongings and ordered to wear striped prison pyjamas.

Two or three times a day, they were given water or tea, rice, pita bread and sometimes chicken.

The soldiers with gunshot wounds had surgery.

"More than once, a doctor said that they wanted to take good care of me to show that the Iraqi people had humanity," Johnson said.

With each move, the prisoners' conditions eased somewhat.

At their final stop, the guards pooled their own money to buy the Americans food and medicine.

Freedom came when they heard someone kicking in the doors and shouting: "Get down! Get down!"

"I was sitting there," Miller said.

"Next thing I know the marines are kicking in the door, saying 'get down on the floor'.

"Then they said 'If you're an American, stand up'. We stood up and they hustled us out of there."

The POWs were declared to be in good shape after their 22 days of imprisonment.

They were flown to an undisclosed location in Kuwait within hours of their rescue.

Three were examined for injuries; the other four were assessed and found to have no problems, said Army Lieutenant Colonel Ruth Lee.

Earlier the soldiers clambered out of helicopters to a delighted welcome at an air base in southern Iraq after their release.

From there, the seven were taken by helicopter to a base near Kut and then to a military airport south of Kuwait City.

Army nursing staff refused to identify the injured soldiers or give details about the medical examinations.

But marine pilots who evacuated them from Iraq said Johnson had been shot in the ankle, and Hernandez had been shot in the elbow.

Johnson, the only woman among the freed prisoners, limped in slippers to a transport aircraft after her release and wore a bandage on her ankle.

Shortly after their capture early in the war, the seven were shown on Iraq's state-run television, giving a human face to the peril confronting prisoners of war.

After the rescue, Young's father in Lithia Springs, Georgia, watched shaky video film of his son on CNN.

"It's him, and I'm just so happy that I could kiss the world." Ronald Young Snr said.

"It's him. It's definitely him."

When the seven arrived at the military base near Kut, some were wearing blue-and-white striped pyjamas and one was in blue shorts.

Marines at the base pressed forward to pat them on the back.

"They look to be in pretty good condition ... all giving the thumbs up," said Colonel Larry Brown, operations officer for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

Captain David Romley said marines marching north towards Tikrit were met by Iraqi soldiers north of Samarra.

They approached the 3rd Light Armoured Reconnaissance Company, and had the seven Americans with them.

Another spokesman for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, Captain Neil Murphy, said the Iraqi soldiers who brought the Americans had been abandoned by their officers and "realising that it was the right thing to do, they brought these guys back".

In Washington, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld said Iraqis told US troops they would find the soldiers at a location between 4km and 8km south of Tikrit.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq war