Hussein Announces Amnesty for Prisoners
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: On now to Baghdad. A gift now from Saddam Hussein. The government announces a general amnesty for prisoners and other detainees. For details, we go live to our Baghdad bureau chief Jane Arraf. Jane, what's the explanation for this?</s>JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fredricka, President Saddam Hussein says it's actually in thanks for the loyalty that he says the Iraqi people showed on referendum day, Oct. 15, when the government says 100 percent of Iraqis voted for Saddam Hussein to stay. Now, in response to that, and in thanks for that, he has thrown open the doors, he says, of all the prisons and jails in Iraq, giving a general amnesty to virtually every Iraqi prisoner. Now reporters were taken to a couple of places. One of them, a sprawling prison on the outskirts of Baghdad, where Americans in the past have been held in the foreigners' wing. Another place, a jail we were taken to near the Ministry of Interior, where they carefully went through lists, unlocked some of the prisoners, and released them district by district. Now, as you can imagine, people were overjoyed at this. The prisoners and the relatives of the prisoners, who gathered in the hundreds at some of these places to see prisoners that they -- relatives that they thought they would not be seeing in a long, long time. It's impossible to tell how many prisoners will be released or whether, in fact, all of them will be released. But in theory, this is the first time ever in the reign of President Saddam Hussein that everyone, including political prisoners, will be freed -- Fredricka.</s>WHITFIELD: So Jane, of course, the timing is questionable. In exchange for their freedom, is there any talk that perhaps these former prisoners are now being asked to join the Iraqi military, perhaps, for what could be an impending war?</s>ARRAF: They wouldn't really be asked to join the military unless they were eligible for military service, the way anyone would be. What they are asked to do is show their loyalty to the Iraqi president. And in fact, in the statement that he made, broadcast on Iraqi radio and television, he said this was a time for reconciliation, and people should not take out vendettas against each other and against these prisoners, who have been guilty of theft, and some of them even of murder. So, in fact, the timing here seems quite clever. On the one hand, it really does diffuse one of the strongest criticisms over the past decades of Iraq's human rights records, that it does jail political prisoner and that nobody knows what happens to them. On the other hand, it also does create a little bit more of internal support. And this really is among the relatives and their families. And those are a considerable number of people. A hugely popular move -- Fredricka.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Jane Arraf from Baghdad. Thank you very much. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com