I don't know where I've been for the past few weeks, because I missed this story on the news. Two weeks ago last Sunday Saddam Hussein announced he was releasing all the prisoners from a compound which is about 20 miles from Baghdad and the prison is roughly one mile square. It holds approximately 20,000 prisoners, hard as that is to believe. Apparently Saddam announced and did this because of something Bush had said in a speech about how badly he treats his own people. Hussein said he was doing it to thank his people for giving him "l00% support" (oh, yeah) in the recent election. At any rate, there was a British journalist and photographer there and on the PBS Newshour tonight he was interviewed and he had quite a story to tell.

Family members started showing up at the prison when they heard this news from the early morning and by afternoon there were probably 50,000 people there, all anxiously waiting and hoping to find their loved ones. The crowd became impatient and knocked down the main gate and flowed in to the prison yard. Imagine thousands of people milling about everywhere, some trying to get IN and some trying to get OUT. At the far end of the prison compound there was a special section, sort of like a prison within a prison, where the political prisoners were kept and they were not yet being released, so people in the crowd picked up large iron piping that was lying around (because more prison blocks were in the process of being built) and began knocking down the cinderblock walls. Apparently some guards were helping the prisoners to get free and some guards were beating the prisoners with iron pipes. Some photos were shown while the interview was taking place and the look of panic and hysteria on people's faces was very hard to take. It was a run of about a mile from this prison block to get to the main gate. In all the panic, untold prisoners and others were trampled or died of suffocation due to the press of the crowd.

This was a very gripping and believable interview and I am surprised that I have heard nothing about this until just this evening. Did anyone else here this news at the time it occurred? I'm usually up on these things.