France, Italy and Germany sanctioned the payment of $45 million in deals to free nine hostages abducted in Iraq, according to documents seen by The Times.
All three governments have publicly denied paying ransom money. But according to the documents, held by security officials in Baghdad who have played a crucial role in hostage negotiations, sums from $2.5 million to $10 million per person have been paid over the past 21 months. Among those said to have received cash ransoms was the gang responsible for seizing British hostages including Kenneth Bigley, the murdered Liverpool engineer.
France, Germany, and Italy are paying millions to captors to release hostages taken in Iraq. This is
crazy. I may not like the war or occupation or any of the people who planned it. But the only viable exit strategy involves de-escalating the violence, not paying millions to the people who are initiating some of the violence.
http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,301620,00.jpg Look at those relieved smiles. They look like a million bucks, and maybe they're even worth five million pounds. But they are not worth the dozens who may be killed by the weapons all that ransom money will buy. If the Euros are buying off hostages, that would explain why European hostages are not being killed. But it would also explain at least where some of the funding for the ongoing terror-insurgencies is coming from.
I opposed this war because I value life. But governments who are authorizing buy-offs of hostages are only valuing the lives of their people and ignoring the overall cost in blood when kidnap gangs, who are almost certainly connected to terrorists in Iraq, become well funded organizations.
More than 250 foreigners have been abducted since the US-led invasion in 2003. At least 44 have been killed; 135 were released, three escaped, six were rescued and the fate of the others remains unknown.
A number of other governments, including those of Turkey, Romania, Sweden and Jordan, are said to have paid for their hostages to be freed, as have some US companies with lucrative reconstruction contracts in Iraq. At least four businessmen with dual US and Iraqi nationality have been returned, allegedly in exchange for payments by their employers. This money is often disguised as "expenses" paid to trusted go-betweens for costs that they claim to incur.
Basic economics people. If you pay people millions of pounds, euros, or dollars for doing something, you're basically asking them to repeat their actions. People will die because of these pay offs and peace will become that much harder to achieve. This is only a small slice of the insanity you unleash when you start up a war.