Freed Australian apologizes to President Bush

[N8]

We understand Mr. Wood was under extreme duress and no apology was ever needed but he offered one anyway. Here is a man with honor and dignity... Changleen/VB take note.

Freed Australian apologizes to Bush
AP via Washington Times | Jun 22, 2005 | Rod McGuirk

MELBOURNE, Australia -- An Australian engineer held hostage in Iraq for nearly seven weeks arrived in his home country yesterday and apologized for his televised plea for coalition forces to withdraw from Iraq. Douglas Wood, 64, who lives in Alamo, Calif., told reporters at Melbourne's airport that he supported the coalition forces' role in Iraq.

"Frankly, I'd like to apologize to both President Bush and Prime Minister [John] Howard for the things I said under duress," said Mr. Wood, with his American wife, Yvonne Given, and his brothers, Vernon and Malcolm, and their wives by his side. "I actually believe that I am proof positive that the current policy of training the Iraqi army ... works because it was Iraqis that got me out," he said.

(Excerpt) Read more at Washingtontimes.com (http://www.freerepublic.com/^http://washingtontimes.com/world/20050620-115844-4630r.htm) ...

[stinkyboy]

"Now that I'M home..."

[valve bouncer]

I wonder how much of the A$400,000 he got for his story from Channel 10 will be going to help the Iraqis he cares so much about. Actually if I was him I'd be apologising too, he was just asking to be kidnapped. Do you actually know what he was doing in Iraq in the first place N8? No, don't google it........Yeah, thought not. You know nothing about this story. Lightweight.

[Damn True]

I must admit to having not looked very deep into his dealings over there. My understanding though is that he was a private building contractor.
More to it than that?
Whats the 411 VB?

As for the $400,000. People often get paid for their stories. Somewhat slimy business to be sure (particularly when it is somone of dubious character like the runaway bride) but not unusual. The networks had a ruthless bidding war for Jessica Lynch's story.

[Changleen]

This guy is being particularly slimy about his milking of the media. Fair enough I suppose, but the way he's gone about it - is just kinda off key... He also said he wants to go back to Iraq. Have a look on www.stuff.co.nz, you might find a bit more there. I don't really give a ****.

[Damn True]

Im getting the feeling that there is more to this story than any of us know and I'm getting more and more curious about it.

Off key? How so?
Any different than Jessica Lynch, the tramp that was banging Scott Peterson, Joey Buttafuco & Amy Fisher or any number of people who have profited from book/movie deals after doing something most folks would consider reprehensible?

Seems like this guy is more of a victim (though he did go to Iraq willingly) than anything else and has suffered much. I don't think I have a problem with him making a buck off of the story.

Now the cleric in Australia is another matter....he comes accross as the down under version of Al Sharpton.

[johnnylovegod]

Yes sheik al Hilally is a little bit strange. But he did give it a good crack and the Aust. teams that were working over there said that without his assistance things may have been quite different......in otherwords they would have found just a torso.

Who is Al Sharpton please?

Here is a man with honor and dignity...
Wow, it doesn't take much to get you wetting your pants does it :confused:

[valve bouncer]

True- the guy went over there to make money, in effect to profiteer off the war. I personally find that objectionable but I see how others wouldn't. He neglected his personal security to an unpardonable degree and it was no surprise that he was kidnapped. I think a lot of Australians, while glad he is free, didn't really have a lot of sympathy for him or his plight.

[Damn True]

True- the guy went over there to make money, in effect to profiteer off the war. I personally find that objectionable but I see how others wouldn't. He neglected his personal security to an unpardonable degree and it was no surprise that he was kidnapped. I think a lot of Australians, while glad he is free, didn't really have a lot of sympathy for him or his plight.

Sounds like you have a more in depth background on the guy. Did his company provide some sort of high demand skill set or were they general contractors? Alamo, CA is only 20 min from Martinez, CA which is where Cheveron and Shell have some of their largest refineries. I'm wondering if he might have specialized in oil refinery equipment construction/maint.

Devils advocate from here on:
As to the personal security thing... I s'pose there are a couple of schools of thought there. One can hire armed security which no doubt would attract attention and might cause more trouble than it prevents. Or, one could try to be as low profile as possible and attempt to avoid conflict. I dunno which one I'd choose in that particular situation.

[valve bouncer]

Sounds like you have a more in depth background on the guy. Did his company provide some sort of high demand skill set or were they general contractors? Alamo, CA is only 20 min from Martinez, CA which is where Cheveron and Shell have some of their largest refineries. I'm wondering if he might have specialized in oil refinery equipment construction/maint.

Devils advocate from here on:
As to the personal security thing... I s'pose there are a couple of schools of thought there. One can hire armed security which no doubt would attract attention and might cause more trouble than it prevents. Or, one could try to be as low profile as possible and attempt to avoid conflict. I dunno which one I'd choose in that particular situation.
True, he wasn't with a company. Went over on spec, followed the money in effect. A sort of capitalist cowboy if you will.
As for the personal security thing, I don't actually think it's possible, as a Westerner, to be low profile in a closed society like Iraq. You're gonna stand out like dog's balls whatever you do. No-one is gonna mistake a fat bald white Australian for an Arab, are they?

[Damn True]

True, he wasn't with a company. Went over on spec, followed the money in effect. A sort of capitalist cowboy if you will.
As for the personal security thing, I don't actually think it's possible, as a Westerner, to be low profile in a closed society like Iraq. You're gonna stand out like dog's balls whatever you do. No-one is gonna mistake a fat bald white Australian for an Arab, are they?


I see.

Well a fat bald white guy with a posse of armed guards might make a much more attractive target ("Hmmm, yo Abdul, that dude must be important.") than some dude quietly going about his business.

Good points though.

[valve bouncer]

Some more background for you True
Living on the edge but living to tell the tale: (http://www.theage.com.au/news/iraq/living-on-the-edge-but-living-to-tell-the-tale/2005/06/16/1118645876179.html)

[johnnylovegod]

I see.

Well a fat bald white guy with a posse of armed guards might make a much more attractive target ("Hmmm, yo Abdul, that dude must be important.") than some dude quietly going about his business.

Good points though.

At a guess, Armed posse = armed attack.
Quietly going about your business = kidnap.

I'm just waiting for the Aust. press to start touting him as a "hero".

[Peteydag]

nice, IRAQIS RULE... wait

[Damn True]

Some more background for you True
Living on the edge but living to tell the tale: (http://www.theage.com.au/news/iraq/living-on-the-edge-but-living-to-tell-the-tale/2005/06/16/1118645876179.html)

Gotta register to read it. Can post the text?

[Chutney]

I didnt have to register for some reason.... :think:

Douglas Wood lived dangerously and took risks in Baghdad, his friends say.

Unlike the fortresses that have been built around a handful of big hotels in the capital, the building in which he lived and worked was never protected by more than three indolent Iraqi guards.

Mr Wood thought nothing of regularly visiting one of Baghdad's more dangerous quarters - Bataween - for lunch at his favourite kebab joint. Friends were shocked at the regularity with which he walked home to his digs on Nasser Square after he would drop into the Alwea Club for a beer with his mates.

Andy Duke, an American who was close to Mr Wood, said they often discussed how they might cope as hostages. Mr Duke recalls: "He talked about his past prowess as an athlete, but in the end he believed it all would be in God's hands, that his time had come."

There is an irresistible charm in the picture that associates paint of Douglas Wood. Their reminisces reveal a colourful character who fervently hoped his life could be changed by diving head first into a mess like post-invasion Iraq.

When the anonymous Mr Wood burst on to the TV screens of the world on May 1 as the first Australian to plead for his life, his shocked family released a carefully worded pen-portrait of their brother as the first step in what became a well-managed, emotional campaign for his release.
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An engineer who had worked around the world, often on humanitarian projects, Mr Wood had lived in California for the past decade where he had children, grandchildren and an American wife - the Alamo real-estate agent Yvonne Given.

He had quit Australia as his businesses went belly-up in the early 1990s.

Friends said that he had done "reasonably well" working in the post-Soviet Georgia, where he still maintained a second home.

But when the US started pumping billions of reconstruction dollars into Iraq, he came hoping to land a "home run" contract while he still had time to reconsolidate his finances.

His Baghdad friends recall the man they knew as fiercely Australian. He often announced his arrival in the bar at the Alwea Club with his own rewrite of the Slim Dusty doggerel: "I love to have a drink with Andy coz Andy's m' mate."

Mr Duke had warned him that something was not right about the deal he was being tempted into when he disappeared on April 29 from the Nasser Square construction site in which he worked and lived.

But Iraqi associates, who Mr Duke and others suspect were complicit in his abduction, were promising Mr Wood his "home run" - they would be exporting 10 million barrels of oil a day through the port of Basra.

Mr Duke was disturbed by the fact that, on the day he was snatched, Mr Wood was being taken to meet the outgoing oil minister, who no longer had the authority to sign such a deal.

Mr Wood often spoke of his loneliness and last year he had returned to Georgia to collect an old friend, his five-year-old miniature schnauzer.

But weeks before his disappearance he had to place the dog with a family in the suburbs because it was so stressed after a truck-bomb targeted at a nearby hotel demolished much of the Nasser Square building around them.

The visit to Georgia had its downside. While he was in Tbilisi, he had an operation to improve his 65 per cent vision. But he returned to Baghdad with only 10 per cent.

Mr Wood started up in Iraq late in 2003. When a business partnership fell apart in 2004, he turned to the Iraqi private sector. A friend said: "He banged around Baghdad like a pinball. He had a driver and a computer and they were getting small jobs - Doug would negotiate for the work and then go into his Rolodex to find Iraqis who could take it on."

[valve bouncer]

A bit more coming out about this. Curioser and curioser.
The secret ploy that saved Wood (http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/the-secret-ploy-that-saved-wood/2005/06/25/1119321945294.html)