ABU GHRAIB, Iraq, 30 May 2004 — They struggled to avoid tears as they filled their palms with candy to throw when the released prisoners emerged. But the Ayoob family, anxiously waiting for their father and two brothers, worried they would leave the notorious Abu Ghraib prison with empty hands and pockets full of sweets.
Approximately 5,000 shouting and weeping people crowded the road by the prison, lured by the hope that their relatives would be among the hundreds of prisoners to be released by the US-led coalition. Many spent the night under large, colorful tents erected by an Iraqi political party, begging officious men with self-made badges for information. The coalition refused to announce who would be released, citing security concerns.
The 617 detainees let go Friday were in the fourth group freed since photos of prisoner abuse inside Abu Ghraib spread around the world last month. The releases came about a week after the first American soldier was sentenced to one year in prison as part of a plea bargain. Approximately 2,800 detainees remain in the prison, according to a military spokesman.
But the releases, say families like the Ayoobs, are as much a curse as a blessing. The chaos of the events echo Saddam Hussein’s tactics: Raising and mashing hopes, potentially setting criminals free, and angering even those let loose. It is an example, they say, of how the anxious desires that greeted Americans have turned to bitter disappointment and fury.
The Ayoob family huddled by their two cars, staring at a distant line of young American soldiers, uncertain who would emerge.
“We lived under war, embargo, destruction,” said Najah Ayoob, 50, a schoolteacher waiting for her father and her husband’s brothers. “When the Americans came we thought we would live in luxury. But the change is for the worse.”
Behind the Ayoobs, loudspeakers blared stridently. “You are heroes!” one speechmaker shouted into a microphone after a sheik finished a long, glory-filled story about a martyr imprisoned centuries ago. Prisoners inside Abu Ghraib, the sheikh explained, live in outdoor tents and can hear the loudspeakers, which had been on for the past five days.
Occasionally the crowd chanted anti-American slogans. But the Ayoobs did not care about sheikhs or soldiers, politics or the building anger. They only wanted their family back.
“On March 29, at midnight, soldiers pushed the door and grabbed our family, just took them out of bed, roughly. We have not seen them since,” Ayoob said. Troops came into their impoverished neighborhood, she said, looking for insurgents, and handcuffed and jailed 11 innocent men.
A US military spokesman said it would not comment on individual cases, but that arrests were the result of difficult decisions made by soldiers working under extreme conditions. Prisoners were released if there wasn’t sufficient evidence for prosecution, and when they were not considered a significant threat to coalition forces.
This was the Ayoobs’ fifth trip to Abu Ghraib. An old woman dressed in a black chador approached them, only her eyes visible. She clutched a plastic bag containing a photo of two young men holding hands in front of a mosque. “These are my sons,” Amina Zeda told the Ayoobs. “One was shot in the head and died. The other is inside. Will he come out?” But her question was lost as the crowd pushed forward to meet US troops and armored vehicles coming out of the prison gate.
“Get back!” one Iraqi shouted. “They will shoot you if we are too close!”
The first bus came out filled with wide-eyed, ecstatic men, and the crowd roared, pushing against the troops. At least 12 more buses followed, windows filled with yelling, smiling faces.
As every bus passed, the crowd rose and desperate fathers whipped their heads, searching for a particular face.
Mohammed Said Ayoob, Najah’s husband, joined others climbing up a truck for a better look. He did not see anyone he knew.
A half-mile down the road, the convoy halted. Shots had been fired and traffic was blocked, according to the military. The waiting families following behind abandoned their cars, and a crush of people — a few at first, then so many they filled the highway — overran the armored vehicles and swarmed the buses. Inside, weeping men jostled to wedge their heads out of small windows, to shout their name and look for someone to recognize it.
Najah Ayoob joined the sea of people, looking in the windows of one bus and then another. When she stopped, she realized she had become separated from most of her family. The wave of people carried her forward, and she moved between vehicles, jumping, desperate to see inside.
Suddenly, one of the bus doors opened and the released prisoners spilled out. Then all the vehicles were open and empty. Crying men clutched those released, shouting and weeping while others bowed down in prayer, kissing the ground before touching it with their forehead.
“There are people raped, humiliated in Basra prison!” shouted Faras Hamid, who said he spent seven months in several prisons after being detained at a checkpoint. His eyes red with anger and tears, he pushed an American reporter as he ran with his brother to a waiting car. “They let everyone out! The thieves, the saboteurs! Like Saddam! America will burn in Iraq!”
In the final days of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the Iraqi dictator emptied the country’s prisons. A US military representative said every detainee released Friday was carefully reviewed, but many prisoners said common criminals were also freed.
As the streets emptied, Najah Ayoob continued running among the vehicles, searching. Her father had been a police officer under Saddam, and had been taken without his shoes. She had worried about his feet and his health, had sent letters begging the Americans to give him medical care. But there was no response. “My child, he asked about his grandfather after he was taken,” she said. “He is 4 years old. He asked where can we buy bombs so we can attack the Americans. We are so angry and scared.”
The streets became deserted, cars racing off with families shouting and weeping. Ayoob desperately entered a bus, but all of them were empty. She began to weep and returned to her car, assuming other relatives had driven home in the second vehicle they had brought.
Once home — a small, white house on a dusty street filled with children and garbage — she paused at the door. Her disappointment was crushing. Her father had done nothing wrong, she said.
Then voices boomed from inside. She swung the entrance open and saw the small living room filled with people — an old man on a sunken couch, two young men, freshly washed, walking from the kitchen. She reached into her pocket and took out the candy. But sweets already covered the floor, scattered among the cracked tiles and family members. She dropped the candy and the room erupted in noise.
She began to cry again.
Her family was home.
