Iraq to Release 3 U.S. Hostages, All 58 Swedes : Captives: No date is set. Hussein responds to pleas from visiting relatives.

President Saddam Hussein on Monday ordered the release of three American men held hostage since his country’s Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait.

Hussein, who last week offered to free all the estimated 2,000 Western and Japanese hostages held in Iraq over three months starting on Christmas Day, agreed to free the three Americans in response to a plea by their relatives, who met him Monday in Baghdad.

Two of the three Americans appeared with Hussein and some of their relatives in a television broadcast. They were identified as Fred Harrington, 59, of Bellevue, Wash., president of the American Pulp and Paper Co. in Redmond, Wash.; and John Stevenson, 44, a computer specialist who worked in Kuwait for 11 years.

The identity of the third American was not immediately known, and it was not clear when the three would leave Baghdad.

“We feel fantastic because we are going home. We met with the president, and he is a very nice man,” said Stevenson’s twin sister, Mary, of Brockton, Mass.

About 700 Americans are still in Iraq and Kuwait, including more than 100 held as so-called human shields at military and industrial facilities to deter attack by U.S.-led forces.

“Iraq wants peace,” Iraqi television quoted Hussein as telling the relatives. “We don’t want peace for just ourselves, but peace for all humanity.”

Apparently alluding to the U.N.-imposed trade embargo against his nation, Hussein said “large numbers of people” have died “because of the lack of food and medicine.” He gave no figures.

Also Monday, Iraq’s National Assembly voted to free all 58 Swedish hostages. Last week, all German nationals were allowed to go home, and all French citizens were freed last month.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the Bush Administration will continue to discourage the families of hostages from visiting Iraq.

“We discourage travel, we consider it risky and we don’t think it helps,” Boucher said. “Saddam Hussein’s playing with hostages is just cynical manipulation of people, and we don’t think that people should be involved in it.

“Some people have gotten out, and we always welcome that,” he added. “We are happy to see people free, but we continue to discourage travel by family members.”

However, despite Boucher’s admonition, more relatives of hostages are planning to travel to Iraq.

Among them is Tom Van Baale, a Des Moines, Iowa, police officer whose father-in-law, Charles Keegan, 57, is being held in Baghdad.

“It’s very exciting news,” Van Baale, 39, said Monday of Hussein’s plan to free the three Americans.

He said that he and about 15 people are scheduled to leave for Baghdad next Monday to plead for release of their loved ones.

Van Baale’s father-in-law, a certified public accountant, was captured and taken to Baghdad after hiding out in Kuwait for more than seven weeks.

“I’m very optimistic,” said Willie Carr, 47, a Richland Hills, Tex., woman, who will be going to visit her husband, Gary, an oil worker. “They (Iraqis) said if we come in peace, not bearing arms, we will not leave empty-handed. And I believe them--I’m reading into that what I want to.”

Hussein on Oct. 31 invited U.S. hostage families to Iraq for Christmas reunions with their loved ones. But many of the family members have made plans to go before then, fearful that war might be imminent.

Meanwhile, a major hitch has developed in a previously announced plan, worked out by the American Red Cross and its Iraqi counterpart, for exchanging messages between the hostages and their families.

The plan had called for the U.S. human-shield hostages being held to send written messages to their loved ones. After the relatives had responded, shipments of medications, clothes, books and other personal goods were to have followed.

But the Iraqis last week objected to the forms to be used for the messages, saying they are the same ones that are used for situations such as prisoners of war and thus are inappropriate for Iraq’s “guests,” according to Stephen H. Richards, executive vice president of the American Red Cross.

Negotiations are continuing in hopes of resolving the dispute, he said.