Free Republic

Australian businessman Douglas Wood, who was once forced to plead for his life on video, may go back in front of a camera to give evidence against his former Iraqi captors. Mr Wood, now in the United States packing up to return to Australia, said he had been told by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) six more of his alleged kidnappers had been captured in Iraq. This would bring to a total of eight the number of alleged captors now in custody. "What I was told by the AFP just last week is that they have caught six more of...

DOUGLAS Wood has celebrated his return to the US by drinking a Californian saloon out of Australian beer. The Aussie hostage survivor drank the bar dry and sang Waltzing Matilda at a welcome-back party this week hosted by his American wife, Yvonne. "I've drunk the pub out of Foster's," a delighted Mr Wood said. "And it's not the first time I've done that." Mr Wood has been celebrating hard since returning to his Alamo home outside San Francisco about a week ago. He denied media reports that he was almost blind. "Those stories were complete rubbish," he said and then...

FORMER Iraq hostage Douglas Wood is now almost blind, a family spokesman has said. Mr Wood had only about five per cent vision, making it difficult for him to get around unaided and severe rheumatoid arthritis had reduced his movements to a shuffle, the spokesman, who was not named, said. A lack of treatment for his diabetes and glaucoma while he was held captivity had damaged Mr Wood's eyesight. Mr Wood, 64, was freed by Iraqi and American soldiers on June 15 after being held hostage in Baghdad for weeks by a group calling itself the Shura Council of the...

ALAMO - Douglas Wood, who was a captive in Baghdad for six weeks before a military raid converged June 15 on the place he was being held, came home to his family's Alamo home late Thursday night, making a few brief statements before going into the house. Earlier, upon his early evening arrival at San Francisco International Airport, Wood had told reporters from NBC's San Jose affiliate, KNTV, "You never know what's going to happen next ... When they come in the night and shoot guys ... knowing ... tonight might be your turn. You don't get used to that."...

FREED Iraq hostage Douglas Wood plans to buy an Aussie pub. With the money earned selling the story of his survival after being taken hostage by Iraqi militants, Wood is planning to buy a hotel towards the end of the year. But first he wants to start a career on the public speaking circuit. Questioned about the pub plan this week, Mr Wood described it as a "miscellaneous rumour". But his brother Vernon Wood confirmed it was true. "He's interested," Vernon Wood said. "I think it will be down the track, in three to six months. "He is focusing on...

CAMP JUSTICE, Iraq, July 13, 2005 – The Australian army presented awards to Iraqi soldiers who rescued Douglas Wood, the Australian contractor held captive by terrorists for six weeks, in a ceremony at the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in Baghdad July 11. Australian army Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Peter Leahy hosted the ceremony, and Iraqi Lt. Gen. Naseer Abadi, deputy chief of staff, represented the Iraqi minister of defense. Brig. Gen. Jaleel Khalaf Shouail, commander of Iraqi division's 1st Brigade, also attended. The Australians presented gifts and offered special thanks to Col. Mohammed Fa'ek Raouf, battalion commander of the...

FORMER hostage Douglas Wood will meet Prime Minister John Howard today to apologise for remarks he made at gunpoint. He will also thank the Government for the multi-million dollar, taxpayer-funded rescue mission it mounted to try to free him from his captors. Mr Wood has previously said that statements his kidnappers forced him to make on video, pleading for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, had weighed heavily on him. "Frankly, I'd like to apologise to both President Bush and Prime Minister Howard for the things I said under duress... I'm very committed to the policies of the two governments...

Andrew Jaspan, editor of The Age newspaper in Melbourne, on ABC radio last Wednesday I WAS, I have to say, shocked by Douglas Wood's use of the arsehole word, if I can put it like that, which I just thought was coarse and very ill-thought through and I think demeans the man and is one of the reasons why people are slightly sceptical of his motives and everything else. The issue really is, largely speaking, as I understand it, he was treated well there. He says he was fed every day and, as such, to turn around and use that...

With guns pointed at his shaved and visibly battered head, Australian hostage Douglas Wood said things he didn't mean, parroting words his captors fed him. In a clip of film that has become a jihadist cliché — masked gunmen, dehumanized captive, Al Jazeera logo — Mr. Douglas called for coalition forces to withdraw from Iraq, a jihadist goal he doesn't share with the thugs who imprisoned him for nearly seven weeks. After his rescue by American and Iraqi forces this week, the 64-year-old engineer made it clear he'd been coerced on tape, that he had not been speaking freely. "Frankly,...

FORMER Iraq hostage Douglas Wood has revealed he might lose his eyesight due to disease. Mr Wood said today he had been diagnosed with a number of illnesses since he was released in Iraq a fortnight ago, including rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, malnutrition and the eye disease glaucoma. He said the glaucoma was not the result of his 47 days blindfolded in captivity, but due to the steroids he took to treat his arthritis. Asked if his eyesight was in jeopardy, he said: "It may be." "It may not be a major issue, it might be a minor issue. I think...

IF Douglas Wood had emerged from captivity and blamed John Howard, Tony Blair and George W. Bush for his troubles, he would have become an instant hero in some circles. By now he would be have been offered a Chair in Middle Eastern Studies at one of our major universities, and ABC Radio National would have been renamed Radio Doug in his honour. Instead, Mr Wood had the temerity to disparage his captors, praise his liberators and declare our Iraq mission worthwhile. His name has been mud ever since. According to Fairfax columnist and former Media Watch host Richard Ackland,...

AN AUSTRALIAN engineer rescued from militant kidnappers in Baghdad had to listen as his captors murdered two Iraqi hostages next to him, he said yesterday.Douglas Wood, 64, said his kidnappers also killed two of his Iraqi assistants and dumped their bodies at a Baghdad garbage tip. "I feel absolutely rotten," Mr Wood said. "I was the ultimate cause of it." He said he planned to send money to the families of the dead men. Mr Wood was freed earlier this month after 47 days in captivity in a joint operation involving Iraqi and US troops in a dangerous Sunni neighbourhood...

A BLINDFOLDED Douglas Wood heard two Iraqi hostages being executed - one at his feet - during his 47 day ordeal at the hands of his captors in Iraq. The freed Australian hostage has told how he heard the two executions at the second house in which he was held. "Over a period of about five days three Iraqis turned up, the first of which was the only one that got out alive," he told the Channel 10. "He came out with me and the other two were shot while I was there." Mr Wood said his captors came into...

MEMORIES of childhood, family holidays and past girlfriends were used by Douglas Wood to stay sane during his 47 days' captivity in Iraq. Mr Wood revealed last night that he had witnessed several executions while held in two houses. One Iraqi was killed at his feet. He recalled how he had worked hard to remain positive. "I think I was conscious of trying to keep myself sane by exercising my mind," he said. He spent time in captivity recalling family trips to Lakes Entrance, playing football, stopping for ice-cream at Bairnsdale, and even having his first tooth pulled, as well...

An Australian who was held hostage in Iraq has described the murders of two fellow detainees in the same room. In his first extensive interview, Douglas Wood, 63, also told Australian TV of his efforts to retain his sanity during his captivity. The engineer was held for 47 days by gunmen in Baghdad before being rescued by Iraqi forces earlier this month. He was reportedly paid A$400,000 dollars (US$307,000; £169,000) by Channel Ten for his story. Mr Wood was bound, gagged, beaten and fed only bread and water by his captors. 'Replay of my life' He said he heard two...

Secret efforts to free Australian hostage Douglas Wood began in earnest after his family publicly stated that they would make a donation to an Iraqi charity. Sources told The Sunday Age that the initial deal negotiated through Sheikh Taj al-Din al-Hilali in late May and early June was that Mr Wood would be freed for a payment of $US100,000 ($A130,000) and not the $US25 million that was being demanded. When Mr Wood's family said the money would go to a charity, it was interpreted by the kidnappers as a coded message that money would be paid to secure his release....

Hostage Douglas Wood's release was secretly negotiated by Australia about 10 days before he was "accidentally found" by Iraqi troops, The Sunday Age can reveal. But his freedom was delayed while an elaborate plan was hatched to free him without having to pay $US100,000 ($A130,000) demanded by the criminal gang holding him. The Sunday Age has learnt that arrangements were made by Australian authorities to fly Mr Wood from Dubai to Australia on an RAAF aircraft as early as June 6, but this was suddenly cancelled without explanation. Inquiries indicate that members of the emergency response team, headed by senior...

FREED hostage Douglas Wood has told how he feared al-Qaida was coming to execute him as US and Iraqi rescue forces swooped. "It's throat cutting time again," Wood said to himself as he heard his saviours breaking in. He has also revealed that he offered to stay in Iraq and help catch his kidnappers. And that he was ordered to cry while begging for his life in the chilling first video shot by his kidnappers. "I was told I had to cry. I physically had a problem that I had to cry . . . I am a male chauvinist...

THE editor of Melbourne's The Age newspaper has defended Australia's Journalist of the Year, Paul McGeough, in the wake of revelations that he may have erred in two significant reports he filed from Iraq. McGeough claimed in an article published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald that former Iraqi interim leader Iyad Allawi shot dead as many as six prisoners in June last year. But the story was discredited by a report yesterday that Iraqi officials and US special forces bodyguards assigned to Allawi had passed lie detector tests in denying the murder allegations. "My view is that...

MELBOURNE, Australia -- An Australian engineer held hostage in Iraq for nearly seven weeks arrived in his home country yesterday and apologized for his televised plea for coalition forces to withdraw from Iraq. Douglas Wood, 64, who lives in Alamo, Calif., told reporters at Melbourne's airport that he supported the coalition forces' role in Iraq. "Frankly, I'd like to apologize to both President Bush and Prime Minister [John] Howard for the things I said under duress," said Mr. Wood, with his American wife, Yvonne Given, and his brothers, Vernon and Malcolm, and their wives by his side. "I actually believe...