Camp Bucca, Apr 27: Some 200 Iraqi prisoners of war were released today from this coalition camp, many of them chanting "We love Bush" and clapping as they rode out on buses headed for the southern city of Basra. "God has rid us of Saddam" and "no more military service," sang the prisoners as they battled high winds and a dust storm to file onto the buses, almost all of them without shoes and dressed in rags or us army issued blue prison overalls.
Most of them clutched blankets provided by the camp, which lies near the southern port of Umm Qasr. Many prisoners said it was their only possession.
Ahmed Kazim Azzam, 32, told he was happy to go home to his wife and seven children but said he had no job and no money.
"Iraq is better without Saddam," he added, explaining that he had spent a year in an Iraqi prison as punishment for trying to avoid military service.
"Here was much better," he declared.
As the Iraqi prisoners mounted the buses, an American soldier cut off their identification bands and handed them cigarettes and food rations.
At one point this camp, run by the 800th military police brigade held some 7,000 prisoners. US military officials said about 5,800 were still here. Bureau Report