Jill Carroll?s Release: Echoes of The Past

By Michael Kraft

By Michael B. Kraft

The kidnapping and recent release of Jill Carroll, the Christian Science Monitor reporter in Iraq, revives many of the issues that plagued American citizens and the U.S. government during the rash of kidnappings in Lebanon during the 1980�s.

Journalists as well as educators. Christian missionaries and other American citizens were being kidnapped and in some cases murdered by terrorists in Lebanon. The longest-held hostage, Terry Anderson of the Associated Press, was held for six years and 9 months.

The Lebanese Hezbollah terrorists seized over 30 American and other hostages in an effort to pressure Kuwait into releasing the two Lebanese members of the 17- member Dawa group who were captured after the 1983 attacks on the American and French embassies and other targets. The Iran-backed Dawa group of Shiites attacked Iraq because Kuwait supported Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war.

Some of the problems and policy questions that arose in Lebanon a quarter of a century ago still are with us, as illustrated in the kidnapping of Ms. Carroll.

It has been long-standing standing U.S. policy, dating back to the mid-1970�s, not to make concessions to terrorists, or to reward them for their acts. The phrasing has changed slightly over the years to allow some wiggle room for contacts. But the consistent official bottom line has been: no deals that reward terrorists.

During the late 1980�s, I served on the State Department working group dealing with the Lebanese hostage situation and remember the immense emotions and pressures coming from the families and friends of the hostages and the media. The pressures ultimately resulted in the Reagan administration�s scheme engineered by Ollie North, then the key National Security Council (NSC) officer dealing with terrorism, to trade anti-tank missiles to Iran in exchange for the hostages. The Hezbollah hostage takers were supported by Iran which needed the missiles in its conflict with Iraq. Shortly after shipments were made, however, and one or two hostages were released, the Lebanese terrorists would grab another hostage to maintain what one of my colleague called a �hostage bank.�

The kidnappings stopped only after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 and in the confusion, the two Lebanese prisoners escaped or were released from jail. One of the Lebanese was Mustafa Youssef Badreddin, a brother-in-law of Imad Mughniya, a senior Hezbollah official. (It was widely rumored in Beirut that Mughniya�s wife refused to sleep with him until her brother was freed from prison.)

Demands for release of prisoners also were an issue in the kidnapping of Ms. Carroll. The 28-year- old young free-lance correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor was held 82 days by a shadowy group that called itself the �Revenge Brigades� and demanded the release of all Iraqi female prisoners being held by the U.S. military.

The American military in January disclosed the release of five detained women but insisted the release was independent of the kidnappers� demands. Five Iraqi women reportedly remain under detention.

The U.S Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalizad, was quoted as saying that the US embassy had not entered into any arrangements with anyone to obtain the release. The Christian Science Monitor editor, Richard Bergenhelm, yesterday said the U.S. government made an extensive effort to secure his reporter�s release. The two comments are not contradictory, however. The U.S. Government typically makes behind-the-scenes efforts to bring pressure on hostage-takers, and those with influence on the kidnappers, But this does not mean paying ransom.

The basic theory behind refusing to give in to terrorist demands is the belief that even if doing so might help resolve the individual case, paying off the terrorists will just encourage more acts of terrorism. That seems to be the case in Colombia and other places where taking hostages has become a money-making enterprise and the patterns is repeating itself in Iraq, especially with the kidnapping of Iraqi citizens by criminal gangs.

Another issue replayed from the Lebanese situation is whether publicity helps obtain the release or just makes the unfortunate victims seem more valuable in the eye of the hostage holders. One of the complicating factors during the Lebanese hostage era was the proliferation of �bleeding heart� stories, especially by TV correspondents interviewing tearful families. Although these were probably regarded as merely human interest stories by the media, the terrorists seemed to consider them as tools to pull the heartstrings and put pressure on Congress and Administration policy makers.

There is a long-standing operational theory that those policy makers who have to make the hard decisions in terrorist hijacking cases should be shielded from the emotional pressures of the families. During the rash of Lebanese hostage taking, high level State Department officials met with hostage families but tried to keep President Reagan from meeting them. The counterterrorism specialists were concerned that the President might succumb to their emotional appeals and approve steps that might be counterproductive in the long run. The fears were realized when the National Security Council staff interpreted Reagan�s sympathetic reactions to families as opening the door to the Iran-Contra missiles scheme (which violated arms export control laws and resulted in convictions for North and some others involved.)

In Ms. Carroll�s case, her family and supporters went the publicity route after the Baghdad press delayed reporting her capture for several days in hopes that she might be quietly released. It may be that appeals by Iraqi officials and Muslim groups might have had an impact in her release. The Christian Science Monitor and her supporters circulated via the newspaper's website and other means the argument that Ms. Carroll, who speaks Arabic, had written stories sympathetic to the Iraqis. We do not know at this time, and may never know for sure, what finally triggered her release. But this approach is cause for uneasiness. This former foreign correspondent, and current journalists, must now wonder whether a reporter kidnapped in the future might be released if his or her stories were not considered sympathetic.

A point the State Department has tried to get across in hostage cases that the hostage taking does not help the kidnappers� cause. It is noteworthy that the kidnappers in Iraq have halted at least for the time being their grisly practice of distributing videos of the beheading of hostages. It apparently was too much even in the violent Iraqi context.

The video made just before Ms. Carroll�s release in which she criticized the U.S. and appeared sympathetic to the insurgents raises another issue. The video no doubt was intended by the hostages for propaganda value. It has been State Department policy to consider such statements by hostages while in captivity as made under duress and not to be taken at face value. This also applies to military personnel who traditionally were not supposed to say anything more than name, rank and serial number.

Some conservative bloggers quickly criticized Ms. Carroll�s remarks and there were suggestions in the press that she had succumbed to the so-called Stockholm syndrome in which the hostages become sympathetic to the captors. After leaving Iraq, Ms. Caroll said she made the video at gunpoint and called her captors criminal. There is no reason to doubt that she made her statements under duress. She deserves our support and sympathy for her ordeal.

As with other kinds of terrorist attacks, the first reports and impressions do not always stand up. But these issues have been with us for decades and unfortunately will be with us in the future.

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