I'm got more to do in Iraq, says Sooden

Harmeet Sooden

Rescued Iraqi hostage Harmeet Sooden feels the risk to which his rescuers were exposed and the financial cost of carrying out the rescue were acceptable, given the overall cost of the Iraq war.

"The figures I have heard is that the war has cost $2 trillion ...

"With regard to the soldiers taking risks [in the rescue], they have been taking permanent risk just by being in Iraq."

The 33-year-old Christian peace worker said he would return to the war-torn country as he feels he has work left to do there.

"I have never felt as if I should not have gone."

Mr Sooden, speaking publicly yesterday for the first time about his four months as a hostage in Baghdad, told a large media contingent his rescue felt "contrived" and he felt that a conscious effort was made to show that Iraqi soldiers were involved.

"It seemed like that was part of the feeling ... as if an effort had been made to make that very clear to us."

He also said he had no firm evidence to suggest a ransom had been paid, but "instinct" suggested it had.

However, a spokesman for Prime Minister Helen Clark said that New Zealand policy was "never to pay ransoms". That was also Canada's policy.

"We have no knowledge of any ransom being paid," the spokesman said.

Mr Sooden, fellow Canadian James Loney, 41, and Briton Norman Kember, 74, were rescued on March 23 from a west Baghdad house during a military operation involving US, British and Canadian troops.

A fourth man kidnapped with them, American Tom Fox, 54, had been found dead weeks earlier.

An at-times-emotional Mr Sooden began yesterday's press conference by reading a prepared statement, which included a tribute to Mr Fox, a tribute to the people of Iraq and a dig at the New Zealand Government, which supplied troops to Iraq early in the conflict.

"What are the consequences of an illegal Anglo-American invasion and occupation with the complicity of a host of Western institutions, including the New Zealand Government ... ?"

Mr Sooden was captured in Baghdad in November with the three other members of a Christian Peacemaker Team. The surviving trio were held for 118 days before being rescued on March 23.

Mr Sooden denied suggestions his behaviour - in ignoring official advice not to travel to Iraq, then needing to be rescued - was reckless.

"I am a human being. Yes, I can be foolish, but in terms of helping other human beings I think that's natural."

Mr Sooden said his captors treated him well, for the most part. "There was a little violence ... I was slapped once."

He also believed his captors may have been only part-time terrorists.

"They appeared to be ordinary people that had other jobs ... living normal lives and had to do something that was quite scary for them."

The men were armed with "hand guns and AK47s", he said.

Mr Sooden, a Canadian with New Zealand residency, said he intends soon to apply for citizenship. In the meantime, he said he would be spending time with friends and family.

"What I feel right now is that the image people have of me right now is not what I am.

"I am not a hero. I make mistakes."