14 High-Level Iraqi Inmates Freed

The U.S. military confirmed that 14 more high-ranking Iraqi detainees had been released, and a lawyer for some of the freed prisoners said Saturday that an announcement of Iraqi warrants for them was “pure theater.”

The U.S. previously had confirmed that eight former senior figures in the regime of Saddam Hussein were freed Dec. 17. They included scientists Rihab Taha and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash -- known as Dr. Germ and Mrs. Anthrax.

Their lawyer, Badee Izzat Aref, said this month that more than 20 had been freed, and the new announcement brings the U.S. total in line with his statement. Several of the freed prisoners appear to be still in U.S. care for their protection, awaiting flights abroad.

National Security Advisor Mowaffak Rubaie said after he met top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf that he would not allow them to be at large: “There are warrants of arrest for them issued by Iraqi judicial authorities and if they are released, we’ll arrest them.”

But Aref said the government had agreed to a deal under which, according to him, U.S. forces had freed the 22 detainees on condition that they leave the country. He said the government statement about warrants was just theater.

“The 22 individuals no longer posed a security threat to the people of Iraq and to the Coalition forces,” U.S. commander Gen. George Casey said Saturday in a joint statement with the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad.

Casey said none had been given travel documents or transported out of the country.

Aref said the other former prisoners were in the process of leaving the country after being given passports by the Iraqi government on condition that they not return for at least three years.

Dismissing Rubaie’s comments, he said the U.S. authorities had determined that the Iraqi cases against the 22 had insufficient basis. U.S. authorities said they were still holding 65 high-ranking figures, including Hussein.

Asked where the freed prisoners were, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said that he could not elaborate but that it was a U.S. responsibility to “safeguard them after their release.”

Thirteen additional detainees whom he did not name are being considered for release, he said.

It appears that many of those freed are still in U.S. care, possibly at Baghdad airport.

Taha, married to Hussein’s former oil minister, is a British-trained microbiologist, and Ammash is a U.S.-trained microbial genetic engineer. Both were detained by U.S. forces in May 2003.

Taha admitted producing germ warfare agents but said all such weapons were destroyed. U.S. officials believe Ammash was instrumental in rebuilding aspects of Iraq’s biological warfare production capability during the mid-1990s.

Violence continued around the country Saturday.

A U.S. soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack while on patrol near Hawija in northern Iraq, the U.S. military said.

On the outskirts of Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad, saboteurs blew up an oil pipeline with an improvised bomb.

At least 16 Iraqis died in shootings and bombings around the country.