Iraq

Ex-hostage is reunited with wife in Germany

LANDSTUHL, Germany - Former hostage Thomas Hamill was reunited Wednesday in Germany with his wife, who brought his favorite clothes and promised him steak and chocolate cake.

Hamill, a 43-year-old truck driver for a Halliburton subsidiary who escaped his Iraqi captors Sunday, has been treated since Monday at this facility in Germany for a wounded arm.

Kellie Hamill flew from Mississippi to the U.S. military's Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, hospital spokeswoman Marie Shaw said.

"It was a very emotional reunion," Shaw said. "She brought him his favorite cowboy boots, red shirt and jeans."

Mrs. Hamill planned to cook her husband's favorite dinner: steak, with chocolate cake for dessert, Shaw said.

In a statement, Hamill said his treatment is "going very well."

"My recovery is definitely improving now that my wife, Kellie, is here with me," he said. "My only plan now is to go home as soon as possible and spend some quality, private time with my family."

Shaw said she expected that Hamill would be able to head back home to Macon, Miss., by Friday.

"I'm ready to get there and hug my children," Hamill said.

Promising a broader investigation, the U.S. military acknowledged Wednesday that two guards at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had been disciplined over allegations of prisoner abuse.

Air Force Capt. Laurie Arellano, a spokeswoman at Southern Command in Miami, also said a third U.S. guard faced abuse allegations but was cleared.

The two guards were given administrative punishments, which often range from letters of reprimand to base restrictions, Arellano told the Associated Press.

She said it was not clear what type of abuse occurred or whether any of the three guards were still at Guantanamo, where some 600 detainees are being held on alleged links to Afghanistan's Taliban regime or al-Qaida network.

LONDON - U.S. soldiers who detained an Iraqi woman last year placed a harness on her, made her crawl on all fours and rode her like a donkey, Prime Minister Tony Blair's personal human rights envoy to Iraq said Wednesday.

The envoy, legislator Ann Clwyd, said she had investigated the claims of the woman in her 70s and believed they were true.

During five visits to Iraq in the last 18 months, Clwyd said, she stopped at British and U.S. jails, including Abu Ghraib, and questioned everyone she could about the woman's claims.

Asked for details, Clwyd told the Associated Press that she "didn't want to harp on the case because as far as I'm concerned it's been resolved."

BRITAIN MAY SEND MORE TROOPS: Prime Minister Tony Blair said Wednesday that Britain is involved in discussions with the United States about sending more troops to Iraq. Britain has about 7,500 troops in southern Iraq.

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