NEW YORK, 19 July 2004 — Lebanese-born US Marine Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun, who disappeared from his unit in Iraq and turned up in Lebanon three weeks later, arrived at Quantico Marine base, Va., this Thursday, where — after six days of evaluation in a US military hospital in Germany — doctors here will now assess whether he can return to duty.
Hassoun’s brother, Mohammed, who lives in West Jordan, Utah, was flown in to join his brother in Quantico on Friday evening.
Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, 24, a Marine truck driver who served as a translator in Iraq, was smiling when he landed at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va., southwest of Washington, DC.
“He is in good condition and looks good physically,” Lt. Col. David Lapan, said spokesman for the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where Hassoun was based before going to Iraq. “He seems to feel comfortable to be back in the US with other Marines and people he knows,” Lapan told Arab News by telephone from Quantico. Lapan said when his group flew up to Dover to meet Hassoun, they brought along a Marine from Camp Lejeune “who is a close friend of his — so he would have a friendly face and someone he could be comfortable with and not feel alone,” Lapan said. “When he saw his friend, his face lit up. He hadn’t known what to expect,” said Lapan. Hassoun will undergo the routine “repatriation” process at Quantico for Marines who have been captured or detained. It involves debriefing and assessment by a team that determines whether a Marine can be returned to his unit. A psychologist leads the team. The assessment can take weeks to months, Lapan said. This reintegration period, called SERE, “Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape” are a series of debriefings, Lapan explained. The objective is to gather information from Hassoun that could be of immediate use for his unit in Iraq; and whether anything learned could be used for future survival techniques by other Marines.
In the past, the SERE training program was used mainly for air force pilots. It is now being considered for Marines and soldiers who face possible captivity, Lapan said.
Regarding the circumstances of his disappearance, Lapan said no information is currently being released “because we’re still gathering information.”
“Cpl. Hassoun will remain at Quantico until the repatriation team decides whether he is able to return to full duty,” Lapan said. He did not indicate when Hassoun would be repatriated to Camp Lejeune, saying the corporal himself will also play a part in deciding when he is ready.
Hassoun is expected to be questioned by intelligence officials, after he is repatriated to Camp Lejeune. They are expected to look into whether militants in Iraq abducted Hassoun, whether the abduction was a hoax or whether Hassoun was deserting his unit. No charges have been filed, and the military has not assigned a lawyer to Hassoun. Hassoun, a native of Lebanon who holds dual US and Lebanese citizenship, was reported missing from his base in western Iraq on June 20.
A week later, Al-Jazeera broadcast a videotape that showed Hassoun blindfolded with a sword held over his head. A voice on the video threatened to kill him if the United States did not free Iraqi prisoners. On July 5, a group claiming to be Hassoun’s kidnappers said in a statement that it had released Hassoun unharmed after he promised to quit the US military. Hassoun, accompanied by family, arrived at the US Embassy in Beirut on July 8. It is unclear how he traveled from Iraq to Lebanon.
