Capture and Negotiations For Release
After Armstrong and Hensley were killed, the British government and media responded by turning Bigley's fate into Britain's major political issue during this period, leading to subsequent claims that the government had become a hostage to the situation, as President Jimmy Carter had arguably done during the 444-day Iran hostage crisis in 1979-81.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and Prime Minister Tony Blair personally contacted the Bigley family several times to assure them that everything possible was being done, short of direct negotiation with the kidnappers. It was also reported that a Special Air Service (SAS) team had been placed on standby in Iraq in the event that a rescue mission might become possible.
The British government issued a statement saying it held no Iraqi women prisoners, and that the only two women known to be in U.S. custody were two so-called high-profile Iraqi scientists, British-educated Dr. Rihab Taha and U.S.-educated Dr. Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash. Both women participated in Iraq's biological-weapons program, according to the United Nations weapons inspectorate. News reports had earlier suggested that other Iraqi women were indeed being held in U.S. custody, but it is not known to what extent these reports were out-of-date by the time of Bigley's kidnap.
The Iraqi provisional government stated that Dr. Taha and Dr. Ammash could be released immediately, stressing that this was about to happen anyway, as no charges had been brought against the women.
Read more about this topic: Kenneth Bigley
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