Freed Hezbollah/Sadrist Captive Richard Butler: Hey, At Least I Wasn't Captured By the Americans!

He's a Brit, but he works for CBS.

Please turn in your HB-1 visa, asshole.

CBS News journalist Richard Butler said he believes he was kidnapped in Iraq by policemen with sympathies toward the Hezbollah but isn't entirely sure who held him captive for two months or why.

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He was taken from a hotel room in Basra, where he was on a trip to meet the chief of staff for anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, Butler told CBS News' Allen Pizzey. Portions of the interview were being shown on the "CBS Evening News" on Monday.

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"Straight away you assess the situation," he said. "I am standing there, in front of these eight guys with AK-47s, and I am in a pair of underpants and a T-shirt. The odds are not in my favor. so there is no point in trying to do anything heroic or stupid."

Under the circumstances, he's quite right, but I can't help but think that is the perfect credo for journalists.

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While he was held, he heard a lot of Hezbollah propaganda video and Hezbollah ringtones on mobile phones, but he can't be sure his captors were affiliated with the organization.

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Butler said he felt it was better to be kidnapped in Iraq then taken into custody by Americans in Afghanistan.

"I was pleased I wasn't being mortarboarded in Guantanamo or being held for six and a half years like an Al-Jazeera cameraman, for instance," he said.

Butler said he lost about 42 pounds and during the last 12 days of his captivity, ate one tangerine and four boiled eggs.

On the day he was found, he heard voices outside where he was staying that escalated into a gunfight. The door to his room was kicked in. A soldier aimed a gun at his head, but when the Iraqi army realized Butler was a Westerner he was taken away to a superior officer.

He was held in restraints and with a sack-cloth over his head and threatened with death and starved to the point where he lost 42 pounds, but of course they were pussycats, just really swell fellers, especially compared to how the Americans treat their genuine prisoners of war.

Thanks to CJ.

posted by Ace at 01:34 PM

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