This is a weird story. First, in an article by the Canadian Press mostly about the IGC Puppets “nominating” Iyad Allawi for Prime Minister of Iraq (who asked them what they thought, anyway?) we have a couple of grafs thrown in, separated by other reports on various events in Iraq:
Meanwhile, U.S. soldiers escorting a convoy of buses filled with Abu Ghraib prison inmates on their way to be released came under attack Friday, but there were no reports of casualties. In Kufa, explosions were heard one day after an agreement to end fighting between U.S. forces and Shiite insurgents.
The prisoners had just left the Abu Ghraib facility – the centre of a scandal involving abuse of detainees by American soldiers – when shots were fired from buildings near the freeway. The soldiers hunkered down and the convoy of at least 13 buses stopped. The shooting ended quickly.
[…]
In the attack on the prisoner buses, hundreds of relatives who had been following the convoy also stopped and then swarmed around the vehicles after the shots were fired. Prisoners then got off the buses and went home with their families.
The Guardian just came out with the same story with a bit more detail:
US soldiers escorting a convoy of prisoners released from the Abu Ghraib prison exchanged fire with unknown assailants today after they stopped on a highway outside Baghdad.
More than a dozen buses had just left Abu Ghraib – the prison at the centre of a scandal involving abuse of detainees by American soldiers – when shots were fired from buildings near the freeway, apparently at the convoy.
The US soldiers assumed defensive positions and returned fired. Several tanks arrived after the shooting and monitored the area for an hour, but there was no more fighting. A reporter at the scene did not see casualties.
Before the exchange, US forces in Bradley fighting vehicles had halted the convoy of buses for an unknown reason. Hundreds of relatives parked their cars, blocking traffic in both directions, and rushed to the buses in search of family members.
Many relatives ignored warnings from the US troops, who pointed their rifles and yelled at them to stay back. In previous releases, detainees were escorted all the way to their home towns.
Today, those detainees headed for Baghdad got out of the bus and transferred to the hundreds of cars that had raced after the buses when they left the prison gates.
OK, so a bunch of busses full of people being released from Abu Ghraib got stopped (mysteriously? Right…), came under fire and then “hundreds” of cars that had been following the busses parked willy-nilly all over the highway in both directions, while prisoners swarmed off the busses and into the waiting cars and took off. Both of these articles make a nod to what I think is American BS about how they were taking people to their “hometowns.” If you believe that, consider this other report on how the Americans release people from Abu Ghraib: Iraqis released from Abu Ghraib taken on a bizarre journey and dumped. That convoy of busses took these people to an old quarry 70 miles north of Baghdad and dumped them out.
Why are “hundreds” of cars following these bus convoys? Because they know the US is likely to just dump them out somewhere in the middle of nowhere, that’s why. Take the story of Tu’amaa Mola Hassan Sabeeh, a 67 year-old man with Alzheimer’s reported by Dahr Jamail:
Yet another horrible story is that of Tu’amaa Mola Hassan Sabeeh, a 67 year-old man with Alzheimer’s, who had wandered from his home in Baghdad on June 29, 2003, and has been missing ever since.
His son, Rassem, standing in front of the checkpoint of Abu Ghraib, said, “We searched all of Iraq for him and couldn’t find him. Then three weeks ago someone who was released told us he was here.”
Now the family members take turns coming out and waiting for his release. “We have not been allowed to see him, and if he is released, he can’t remember where to go, so we need to come here everyday to wait for him in case he is released.”
He said the entire family is affected, as the time away from their jobs is draining them financially. He added, “We’re all crying now. All our time is spent waiting. We don’t know his number, since they use numbers instead of names in there. So we know he’s there, but we cannot contact him. Where is the justice?”
How would this man find his way home after the US dumped him in a quarry, far from home? How would they even know where to take him if he can’t tell them where he lives?
I would like somebody in charge of these convoys to explain why the families can’t just pick their loved ones up at the gates of Abu Ghraib. Why can’t the US do one decent thing and just let these people go with dignity?