Length: 10:11
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An edited version of the piece about Roy Hallums that aired on AC360 last night, followed by Rick Sanchez asking Michael to talk more about what happened on Haifa Street.
RICK
SANCHEZ: Welcome back. I'm Rick Sanchez.
So often, we have heard stories of Americans that are
kidnapped in Iraq. And some of those stories, they
ended up with what are, well, gruesome executions.
But this one ended with a daring rescue.
The man that you're about to meet was an American
contractor. He was building messhalls and he was
providing food for our military. He was captured. His
kidnappers demanded $12 million. And now he's telling
the story of what that was like, how he got out.
Then there's this fellow, our own Michael Ware. He
sat down with him. And not only did he sit down with
him as a journalist, but what Michael was able to do
is, he actually was able to compare notes, because
this very same thing happened to Michael.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL WARE (voice-over): Three months after Roy
Hallums disappeared in Baghdad in 2004, this proof of
life video appeared.
ROY HALLUMS: My name is Roy Hallums. I'm an American
national. Please help me.
WARE: Before it was over, Hallums would be held
nearly a full year by Iraqi insurgents -- 311 days --
something I know a little about having been taken by
al Qaeda myself.
(on camera): When I was grabbed by al Qaeda and
pulled from my car, I mean, they were just going to
cut my head off. But it was like it was someone else.
At that moment, it felt to me like it was happening
to someone else even though I was completely or even
hyper-aware of the moment.
HALLUMS: You're right. It's like it's almost third
person, that I can sit there and tell the story. I
can answer any question anybody has. It doesn't
bother me, and what's for lunch?
WARE (voice-over): This is Hallums at the end of his
ordeal. He lost 40 pounds but says he never lost
hope. For most of the time, his kidnappers kept him
in a secret and cramped underground cell, the
entrance sealed shut.
HALLUMS: You could hear them troweling this concrete
over the door, and then they would shove a freezer
over the top of that to hide where the door was.
You're buried in there, and if they decide, well,
it's just too dangerous to go back to the house and
they never come back, then you're in your tomb.
WARE (on camera): Dead men tell no tales.
(voice-over): Eight months after his proof of life
video had appeared, U.S. Special Forces received a
crucial tip on his whereabouts. Worried Hallums would
be moved, they instantly launched a daylight rescue.
HALLUMS: I heard Special Forces pounding on this
little door in the room where I was, and the guy
jumps down in there and says, "Are you Roy?" They
actually found where I was, you know, which was a
miracle.
WARE: Two days after Roy Hallums was rescued, I
joined a U.S. hostage team gathering information and
I shot this video as they returned to the Iraqi
farmhouse and Hallums' hellhole.
It gave me a sense of what may have awaited me or any
other of the westerners kidnapped in Iraq. And now
talking with Hallums, it's forcing me to deal with
things I would rather forget.
My experience began here. I was grabbed in late 2004,
not far from where you see this burning American
Bradley Fighting Vehicle. This is Haifa Street in the
center of Baghdad and al Qaeda had just taken over
the neighborhood. Like Hallums, I was taken at the
height of al Qaeda's campaign of their videotaped
beheadings, like this one, the last images of
contractor Nicholas Berg alive.
I actually videotaped my own capture, my camera
catching one of my abductors pulling a pin on a
grenade before they pulled me from the car.
Unlike Hallums, for me there was to be no
imprisonment. This was al Qaeda, and I was going to
die. They readied me immediately for beheading, to be
filmed with my own camera. I was only saved by Iraqi
insurgents I knew who resented al Qaeda's takeover.
(on camera): Your moment of liberation, brother.
(voice-over): Meeting Hallums, sharing our
experiences flushed up in me a mix of emotions. I
can't even bear the thought of being held for months
on end like he was.
HALLUMS: You're laying there in this little hole in
the dark. You're tied up, hands and feet, and every
little noise, every bump is, is this it? Is this when
they're going to do it?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: Good God. Michael joins us now.
That's one hell of a story, man.
WARE: Oh, it's incredible. Can you imagine 10 months
stuck in a hole?
Now, I'm -- apart from Roy Hallums, I'm the only
Western civilian to have actually seen this hole. And
I don't know if you could see in the video that the
soldier shot off his video camera -- the soldiers are
on their knees. They're not standing up. They're
moving around on their knees.
SANCHEZ: Wow.
WARE: And he was kept tied behind his back, feet, and
masked that 10 months in that hole.
SANCHEZ: I'm wondering as I watch that, you took a
picture of the guy who took you.
WARE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or one of them.
SANCHEZ: What did he do with that live grenade? I'm
not quite sure I understand. You say he pull -- we
saw him pull the pin.
WARE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. On that film -- I filmed my
whole kidnap. I kept the camera running the whole
time.
SANCHEZ: You're nuts.
WARE: Well, it was good -- you know?
SANCHEZ: Yes. No, no, you're a courageous guy.
WARE: But I filmed the whole thing.
And at the end of it, al Qaeda went back and taped --
and deleted, basically, the clip. Their faces were on
it.
SANCHEZ: Right.
WARE: But they missed those few frames. So, what
you're seeing is one of the guys stepping out,
pulling the pin on the grenade and throwing it.
SANCHEZ: That's the guy we saw in that picture.
WARE: Yeah. And he's the one who came to the back of
the car, grabbed me, held the grenade to my head and
pulled me out.
SANCHEZ: So, as long as you know there's a live
grenade there and he's holding the pin with his
thumb, you're not going to do anything.
WARE: No. And there's like 20 guys who have got AK's
to my head. I have got .9-mils to my head. And it was
actually while they were trying to figure out how to
use my camera...
SANCHEZ: Oh, my goodness.
WARE: ... so, they could film my -- I was under the
banner, the same as you saw Nicholas Berg.
SANCHEZ: Did you think you could get away at that
moment?
WARE: Not a chance in living hell.
SANCHEZ: Really?
WARE: That wasn't even a consideration.
SANCHEZ: So, where did they take you?
WARE: They dragged me from the car, because, at that
point, it's like al Qaeda had just taken over midtown
Manhattan.
SANCHEZ: And they had just beheaded somebody.
WARE: They were right in the process of it.
And, so, they grabbed me, pulled me from the car.
They took me round back to a safer place. They set up
the banner.
And they're there getting ready, you know, like the
dude's got the blade. The others are standing back.
I'm just standing there making my peace. And...
SANCHEZ: You're thinking you're going to be dead?
WARE: There wasn't even a question. And they're like
positioning me. All right, now, how do you get this
thing to record? And that's when the Iraqis saved me.
SANCHEZ: Were you willing to do anything to live?
WARE: Well...
(LAUGHTER)
SANCHEZ: No, really, seriously? I'm serious. Because
we see people who -- we get videos here at CNN that
we will not put on the air because we know that these
people have been coerced.
WARE: Under duress.
SANCHEZ: Correct.
WARE: And I have received a lot of those tapes, and I
have been involved in retrieving a lot of hostages.
SANCHEZ: So, let me ask you point-blank, when you're
in that situation, would you be willing to do
anything to live?
WARE: Well, put it this way...
SANCHEZ: Take an oath to al Qaeda, take an oath to
whatever.
WARE: That was not the first time I have been
grabbed. But I'm telling you, I was grabbed by
Zarqawi's al Qaeda, right...
SANCHEZ: Right.
WARE: ... at the height of their beheading campaign.
I'm the only Western to have ever been grabbed by al
Qaeda and lived to tell the tale.
There was no option of doing anything to stay alive,
you know? I couldn't even offer to give them a kiss.
SANCHEZ: You were just riding the wave.
WARE: It was, you die. That was it. And as the Iraqis
who saved me, when they said to the al Qaeda, you
know, so you going to kill him? And they said, "well,
you bring a Westerner in here and you think he's
going to leave alive? No. We're going to butcher him
now."
SANCHEZ: How did you finally get out?
WARE: Basically, al Qaeda took over central Baghdad.
The nationalist insurgents -- because there were guys
who were fighting, like, the American war of
independence, you know, to fight the occupation,
fighting for their country.
SANCHEZ: Right.
WARE: Then you've got the Islamic psychopaths. I knew
those, like, nationalists, those patriots. They're
the ones who took me in there and indeed while we're
standing there, the guy, the guy who brought me in
says to al Qaeda, you know, "you're gonna kill him?"
"Yes, you know, we're going to kill him." And they
go, "well, you know that dishonors me. You know who I
am." And he goes, "yes, we know who you are but we're
going to kill him."
He goes, "oh, right. So, you know, bugger me, huh?"
And he goes, "you know who I work for. Who do you
think told me to bring in him here? Should we get him
on the phone?" The big, big guy.
SANCHEZ: So you were using their own tribalism
against them?
WARE: They were. They were. Basically what it came
down to was, there was foreign al Qaeda and Iraqi al
Qaeda.
SANCHEZ: Exactly.
WARE: And the Iraqi al Qaeda said, "is killing this
guy worth having to go to turf war with these
blokes?" That's where it came down to. And it's
because the Iraqi fighters had known me for so long
that they were prepared to do that. They said, "you
can kill him, but if you kill him, we're at war,
sunshine."
SANCHEZ: It's an amazing story. Thanks for sharing it
with us.
WARE: Oh, yeah, it's great to relive it just for the
purposes of milking it on television years later.
Yeah, it does wonders for me.
SANCHEZ: It's a good thing we have you, Michael.
Thank you.
WARE: Oh, yeah.
SANCHEZ: We have a great story tonight about the
power of social media. Stick around. You're going to
get a kick out of this thing.
WARE: Yeah?