Report: Carroll video was filmed under duress
msnbc.msn.com
Video of kidnapped journalist Jill Carroll the night before her release is now being characterized by her employer The Christian Science Monitor as propaganda she was forced to take part in as the price for her freedom.
In the video, which first appeared Thursday on a jihadist Web site, Carroll praises her captors for treating her well and attacks U.S. policies in Iraq. On Friday, The Christian Science Monitor, quoting Carroll's father, Jim Carroll, reported that the video was made while she was still "under her captors' control."
Jill Carroll, a 28-year-old freelancer for the Monitor, was a hostage for 82 days before her release on Thursday. She is reportedly in seclusion in Baghdad now, and expected to travel back to the United States in a few days.
Carroll, who was seized Jan. 7 in western Baghdad by gunmen who killed her Iraqi translator, is “emotionally fragile” after her captivity, Monitor editor Richard Bergenheim said Friday.
The CSM issued the report after Jim Carroll had a long telephone conversation with his daughter on Friday.
The report says that contrary to comments she made in the video about lenient treatment by the kidnappers, who refer to themselves as the Revenge Brigade, Carroll lived in fear of the kidnappers who had killed her colleague Allen Anwiya, and that even the smallest details of her life — what she ate and when, what she wore, when she could speak — were at her captors' whim. Before making the video before her release, she was reportedly told that they had already killed another American hostage.
In the video, Carroll appeared in a traditional Arab head-covering and said she had never been threatened or abused by her captors — comments that bewildered many viewers and drew harsh criticism from conservative bloggers and commentators.
Before her release, the Monitor reported, Carroll's captors promised her freedom in exchange for cooperating in the making of the video, but she told her father she didn't believe them, because she had been promised freedom several times before.
‘Decompressing’ after captivity
In the morning, after the video was finished, she was released in a Baghdad neighborhood and pointed to the offices of the Iraqi Islamic Party, which then contacted the U.S. government, the report says.
Carroll was at first reluctant to go with an American military escort to the fortified Green Zone, headquarters of the U.S. military, her newspaper said.
Her kidnappers said the Green Zone had been infiltrated by Islamic militants and Carroll might be killed if she cooperated with the Americans, the Monitor said in a report, quoting the journalist's family.
A Baghdad correspondent for the newspaper, Scott Peterson, convinced Carroll it was safe and persuaded her over the telephone that it was the best course of action, the report said.
Since she was freed, Carroll has met with friends in Baghdad and undergone medical checks, said the Monitor's Washington bureau chief, David Cook.
He said Carroll would go see her family in the United States and "decompress" before appearing at the newspaper's Boston headquarters for a celebration and a news conference.
"We'll have a better fix on how she's doing when we lay eyes on her, which we hope will not be too much longer," Cook told Reuters.
The Monitor, along with Iraqi and U.S. officials, has denied any negotiations took place to secure her release, a week after three Western Christian peace activists were rescued by U.S. special forces.
The kidnappers 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 kidnappers' demands. On Thursday, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the United States is still holding four women.
Most of the video released on Thursday consisted of an interview with Carroll, who answered questions about the state of Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion three years ago. She defended the Iraqi people and talked of the hardships they face.
“People don’t have electricity. They don’t have water,” she said. “Children don’t have safe streets to walk in. Women and children are always in danger.”
She said Americans don’t have a grasp of that reality in Iraq.
“Tens of thousands ... have lost their lives here because of the occupation,” she said. “I think Americans need to think about that and realize day-to-day how difficult life is here.”
Carroll appeared tense at times in the video. She said her captors, whom she called the mujahedeen, had treated her very well — “like a guest” — and that she thought the “mujahedeen are the ones who will win in the end in this war.”
“No matter what Americans try to say is happening here or try to do with all their weapons, they aren’t going to be able to stay here, they’re not going to be able to stop the mujahedeen,” she said. “That’s for sure.”
Her captors “obviously wanted maximum propaganda value in the US,” Carroll told the Monitor. “After listening to them for three months she already knew exactly what they wanted her to say, so she gave it to them with appropriate acting to make it look convincing.”
In the video, the journalist calls on President George Bush to send American troops home.
“He knows this war was wrong,” she said. “He knows it was illegal from the very beginning. He knows that it was built on a mountain of lies. I think he needs to finally admit to the American people and make the troops go home.
“He needs to wake up,” she said. “The people in America need to wake up and tell him what he’s done here is wrong.”
It was not possible to reach Carroll to ask her whether she actually held any of the views expressed.
U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Liz Colton declined comment on the video, saying all queries regarding Carroll were being handled by her family and the Monitor. |
