Held Captive

Now free, reporter Jill Carroll, held captive in Iraq, tells her story some months later. Here is a snippet in the Sun Times series:

I talked with Um Ali and other women in the kitchen. Yes, I traveled back and forth between countries for my job, I said. They replied that it was wrong for them to work, that they left school at age 12 to learn to cook and keep house.

Then the dinner platters returned, with the food ravaged - rice everywhere, bones with the chicken chewed off, nothing left but scraps, really.

And the women sat and began to eat the scraps.

I couldn't believe it! After all the time they'd spent preparing the meal, they got leftovers.

They can't work, but they can be suicide bombers. Pregnant with her 4th, the woman looks forward to death. Forgive me for asking, but what do women suicide bombers have to look forward to in death, a full meal?

All these women are held captive.