The first 10 allied prisoners released by Iraq since the end of the Persian Gulf war, six Americans among them, walked, drove and flew to freedom today, saying they felt good.
The group, pronounced in good shape by a Red Cross representative, included the soldier who was the only woman known to be a prisoner of the conflict, Specialist Melissa Rathbun-Nealy, 20 years old, from Grand Rapids, Mich., and Lieut. Jeffrey Norton Zaun, a Navy airman, 28 years old, of Cherry Hill, N.J., who appeared, bruised and battered, on Iraqi and American television at the beginning of the war.
Specialist Rathbun-Nealy was the first servicewoman to be a prisoner of war since World War II. She was captured on Jan. 30 near Saudi Arabia's border with Iraq on a supply mission that came under Iraqi fire. Long Trip to Freedom
The prisoners' trip to freedom began in Baghdad. They were driven across the desert to the border with Jordan and flown by helicopter to Amman. From there they flew on to Bahrain.
[ In Washington, President Bush welcomed the release of the 10, but vowed to win the freedom of "every single" captured soldier and Kuwaiti citizen. He said the war would not be formally ended until Iraq accounted for all its prisoners. Page A10. ]
Continue reading the main storyBy allied accounts, at the end of the war Iraq was known to be holding 13 allied prisoners: nine Americans, two Britons, an Italian and a Kuwaiti. Three of the Americans freed today had been listed as prisoners and three listed as missing.
Today, after the release, the Pentagon said 35 Americans were listed as missing; previous figures have indicated that 10 Britons, one Saudi and one Italian are also missing. Also, Kuwait charges that Iraq abducted large numbers of Kuwaitis, perhaps as many as 30,000 or 40,000, after it invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2.
While Specialist Rathbun-Nealy reportedly laughed with photographers in Baghdad when they joked with her about being on the cover of the French magazine Paris Match, she seemed more withdrawn and stern-faced when the group reached Jordan.
Lieutenant Zaun, a U.S. Navy bombardier-navigator, was captured after his A-6 Intruder bomber went down on Jan. 17, the first day of the war.
Clad in bright yellow jumpsuits emblazoned with the letters "PW," for prisoner of war, the group was handed over by Iraqi officials at a hotel in Baghdad and then driven in a Red Cross convoy across 300 miles of desert to the border town of Ruweishid, Jordan, escorted by Iraqi Army vehicles.
As they arrived in Ruweishid and reporters, photographers and TV personnel surged forward toward their vehicles, some shaded their faces from the camera lights. Happy But Weary
"They are all very happy to be here," Roger Harrison, U.S. Ambassador to Jordan, told reporters in Ruweishid, where the prisoners swapped their Iraqi prison uniforms for gray track suits and departed for Amman in a Jordanian Air Force helicopter.
[ The freed captives were flown to Bahrain, an island emirate in the Persian Gulf, and transferred to a Navy hospital ship early Tuesday, The Associated Press reported. Doctors on the ship said they were in good health and showed no evidence of mistreatment. ]
"Obviously, they are worried about the colleagues they have left behind," Mr. Harrison said. "We are very eager to get the early release of the other prisoners of war as well."
The release was agreed upon Sunday, when the supreme allied commander, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, met with Iraqi generals near the Iraq-Kuwait border. The U.S. Central Command said in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that 300 Iraqi prisoners of an estimated 63,400 Iraqis who surrendered or captured would be handed over to the Red Cross in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
[ All allied prisoners held by the Iraqis could be released on Tuesday, depending on airport logistics, Abdul Amir al-Anbari, Iraq's Ambassador to the United Nations, said in an interview with Visnews, a television news agency.
[ In Washington, a United States official said the Government had been informed by the Red Cross that it would fly a plane from Riyadh to Baghdad on Tuesday, pick up prisoners of war held by the Iraqis, and fly them back to Saudi Arabia. The official said 30 to 33 prisoners would be freed. The official did not know their nationalities or the exact time of the release. ] 'A Thousand Thanks'
"Grazie mille," ("Thanks a thousand times,") Capt. Maurizio Cocciolone, an Italian warplane pilot, shouted to reporters as the group left a Baghdad hotel. The captives included three Britons; one of them, Flight Lieut. John Peters, had also been paraded on Iraqi television.
While they posed for photographers, the group offered no comment to reporters in Baghdad, who said some of them seemed thin and tired.
Red Cross officials in Baghdad gave them Swiss chocolates, soft drinks and sandwiches before they embarked on the six-hour drive to the Jordanian border, where the United States, British and Italian ambassadors met them. In Ruweishid, the prisoners walked briskly from Red Cross vehicles to a tent at an air base and did not talk to reporters.
"For a nonmedical person, I think they are all in rather good shape," said Angelo Gnaedinger, the chief Middle East representative of the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross, who told reporters in Baghdad that his organization had been able to interview the prisoners without Iraqi supervision, hand them letters from their families and give them a brief medical examination.
In Ruweishid, Mr. Harrison, the ambassador, said the allied prisoners were examined once more by a physician. "There is no serious medical problem with any of them," he said. One prisoner, who was wearing a sling, had broken an arm as he ejected from his airplane, but "it's been repaired by surgery and it's fine," Mr. Harrison said. He did not name the former captive. 'Their Treatment Was Good'
He said the Americans had told him "their treatment was good."
"It improved in the last few weeks," he said. "The food was better. The treatment was better."
Asked by reporters whether they had been physically abused, he said the issue had not been discussed when he met them at the Ruweishid air base.
When reporters shouted to the freed captives, asking how they felt, one shouted back: "Good." Ambassador Harrison was asked particularly about Specialist Rathbun-Nealy. "She said, as the rest of them said, how happy they were to be here," he said.
The Red Cross in Geneva said the other Americans freed today were Specialist David Lockett, Army, 23 years old, of Fort Bliss, Tex., who was captured along with Specialist Rathbun-Nealy; Lieut. Robert Wetzel, Navy, 30 years old, of Virginia Beach, Va.; Maj. Thomas E. Griffith, Air Force, 34 years old, of Goldsboro, N.C.; and Lieut. Lawrence Randolph Slade, Navy, of Virginia Beach, Va.
The other Britons released were identified as Malcolm Graham MacGown and Ian Robert Pring.
Some of the captives had been formally listed as prisoners of war and others as missing in action.
Two picture captions yesterday about Iraq's release of allied prisoners omitted identities for two of them. Their identities were unavailable; both captions should have specified that, but only one did.
In the front-page picture, the man at the right has since been identified as Lieut. Lawrence Randolph Slade of the Navy, from Virginia Beach, Va. The picture on the continuation page showed, at the center, Specialist David Lockett of the Army, from Fort Bliss, Tex.