U.S. Hostage Pleads as Iraq’s Wounds Deepen

The intractability of the violence gripping Iraq was on graphic display Tuesday with the release of a videotape of an American hostage begging for his life at gunpoint, the assassination of an Iraqi judge and the killing of at least five members of Iraqi security forces.

In an admission of the pervasive difficulties, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said during a news conference that it was “futile and dangerous” to give a final date for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country. He scoffed at Iraqi politicians who claimed it was possible to set such deadlines, charging that they were using the issue for political reasons in advance of Sunday’s national election.

“I will not set final dates” for the withdrawal of international forces, Allawi said. “I will not deal with the security matter under political pretexts and exaggerations that do not serve Iraq and its people.”

The videotape released Tuesday showed Roy Hallums, 56, an American who was seized Nov. 1 in Baghdad’s Mansour district, the site of many kidnappings.

In the tape, a visibly exhausted Hallums is seated on the floor with a gun pointed at his head. He begs Arab leaders to help win his release, citing in particular Libya’s Moammar Kadafi, who he says “is known for helping those who are suffering,” but makes a point of saying that he is not looking to President Bush for help.

“I am please asking for help because my life is in danger because it’s been proved I worked for American forces,” Hallums says. “I’m not asking for any help from President Bush because I know of his selfishness and unconcern for those who’ve been pushed into this hellhole.”

Hallums was seized along with Roberto Tarongoy, a Filipino, who was not shown on the tape, and four other men who were freed in November. The hostages worked for a company that had a contract to provide food to the Iraqi military.

It was unclear whether the tape was made recently and indicated Hallums’ present frame of mind, especially since such tapes are almost always made under duress. The footage was being reviewed by a team at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

In Westminster, south of Los Angeles, Hallums’ 29-year-old daughter awoke Tuesday to images of her father on television.

“It’s so upsetting to see a gun to his head,” Carrie Hallums said as she was about to board a plane to New York with her mother. They will appear on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and NBC’s “Today” show this week to plead for his release.

“Nobody deserves it, but he definitely doesn’t deserve what’s going on,” she said. “He’s a wonderful person. He is the most caring person you’d ever meet.”

“I don’t want to imagine how he has been treated since that day, as I hear of ‘torture houses’ being found in Baghdad that held American hostages. Picturing my dad in those conditions is too much to bear,” she said.

Insurgents have captured 170 foreigners in Iraq, according to an Associated Press tally, and although the majority have been released, dozens have been killed. Many more Iraqis have been kidnapped.

Early today, a helicopter transporting troops from the 1st Marine Division crashed near the town of Rutbah, about 80 miles east of the Jordanian border, the military announced.

There was no immediate word on how many Marines were aboard, but the military said an announcement on casualties would come later. On Tuesday, gunfights erupted in eastern Baghdad as police battled insurgents who had been handing out leaflets warning people not to vote. In the same area, police and rebels exchanged fire as police attempted to investigate a potential car bomb and insurgents fired on Iraqi and American forces when they responded to another bomb that exploded at a school.

In all, at least three police officers were killed and nine were wounded, said an official at Al Kindi Hospital, according to newswires. Elsewhere, gunmen killed two Iraqi soldiers on patrol west of Baghdad, witnesses said.

Insurgents also shot to death Qais Hashim Shameri, secretary-general of the judges council in the Justice Ministry, and his son. At least one other person in their car was killed.

The Ansar al Sunna Army, one of Iraq’s most active insurgent groups, claimed responsibility. In a website posting, it called the judge “one of the heads of infidelity and apostasy of the new Iraqi government.”

Assassinations of officials, part of the insurgents’ effort to intimidate Iraqis who work for the government, have become an almost daily occurrence.

Assailants also killed a man who worked for a district council in western Baghdad as he traveled to work, police said.

Iraqi government officials Tuesday responded to charges by an international human rights group that they had violated detainees’ rights by beating them and otherwise maltreating them. Interior Ministry officials came in for the most criticism from Human Rights Watch.

The deputy interior minister, Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, denied that detainees had been abused.

“There are humane ways to extract information from these individuals, and these are the steps we follow,” he said. “We do not act in this manner, therefore the Ministry of Interior itself is not responsible for such acts.”

The Ministry of Human Rights is investigating the Human Rights Watch allegations.

Times staff writer Mai Tran in Costa Mesa contributed to this report.