Iraqis Face Their Own Kidnapping Epidemic

[Robbien]

JAMIE TARABAY

Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq - "Give us $100,000, or we'll you give you back your son's head," the voice on the other end of the phone spat at Leon Katchader. "And if you tell anyone about this, we'll come and blow your house up." Two days earlier, his 14-year-old son, Rami, was snatched from around the corner of their house. And the car repair shop owner was only just beginning to grasp the sophistication of the racket behind his son's kidnapping.

"Where am I going to get $100,000? Who told you I was some kind of millionaire?" Katchader pleaded with the man on the phone. But the kidnappers knew he could afford to pay a ransom. They knew that three days earlier, the family had been in Syria, where one of Katchader's four daughters was married. They even knew Katchader's nickname, Levon. "I can only afford $3,000. And as God gave me my son, God can take him away," Katchader said. Then he hung up the phone and collapsed.

While scores of foreigners have been kidnapped by militants as leverage in their fight against the government and coalition forces, Iraqis have faced their own epidemic of kidnappings in the chaos since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime last year. The motive is simply money. There are no accurate numbers on how many have been kidnapped, but most Iraqis have a story to tell about someone they know who was kidnapped - an immediate family member, a relative, or a next-door neighbor.

"This has repeatedly happened, and we are doing our best to deal with it," said Georges Sada, spokesman for Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. One of the biggest problems is keeping kidnappers in jail because the legal system isn't working, said Sabah Kadhim, an Interior Ministry spokesman. "Even if they capture one of them, they are soon let go. They realize you can't go to jail, so they carry on," Kadhim said. He cited the October 2002 amnesty, in which Saddam freed about 100,000 prisoners right before the war, as the main reason for the persistent crime.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/9333530.htm

[LiberalBushFan]

1. The kidnapped are grateful

because they appreciate that although they are kidnapped, they have freedom, thanks to Bush's strong and decisive leadership.