Bloomberg reports:
Douglas Wood, the Australian engineer freed after being held hostage by Iraqi insurgents for 47 days, was reunited with family and friends in Melbourne today.
"I love my family, and I knew that they'd be doing as much as they could to get me out," the 63-year-old Wood told reporters in Melbourne.
Iraqi soldiers found Wood and an Iraqi hostage in the northwest Baghdad neighborhood of Al-Adel on June 15 while conducting a planned search for a weapons cache, according to the U.S. military.
Wood said his rescue was evidence the recruiting and training of Iraqi security forces was working.
"I am proof positive that the current policy of the American and Australian governments is the right one," he said.
...Wood, the first Australian abducted in Iraq, was seized by a group calling itself the Shura Council of the Mujahedeen. Wood pleaded for his life and asked for foreign troops to be withdrawn from the country in a videotape released by his captors the day he was abducted. Australia has 1,370 soldiers in Iraq.
Wood today apologized to Australian Prime Minister John Howard and U.S. President George W. Bush, saying his comments were made under duress.
The man was held hostage for 47 days and he still supports U.S. and Australian Iraq policy. He even felt it necessary to apologize for the statements his captors forced him to say!
I find that amazing.
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