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 Someone, it is not clear who, 
 dropped Jill Carroll off on Thursday morning outside the Baghdad office of the Iraqi 
 Islamic Party, a moderate Sunni group. 
 In an interview with Baghdad television filmed at the party 
 headquarters after her release, she said her captors had treated her 
 well.
  "Very good treatment, very good treatment. I was kept in a very good, 
 small safe place, a safe room. Nice furniture. They gave me clothing, 
 plenty of food. I was allowed to take showers, go to the bathroom when I 
 wanted. Very good. Never hit me, never even threatened to hit me," she 
 said.
  In the video, Carroll is wearing a Muslim headscarf and appears 
 animated, happy and healthy. She says she does not know where she was held 
 and had been largely isolated from news of the outside world. 
  President Bush said he was "grateful" for Carroll's release. He said he 
 is glad she is alive, speaking to reporters in Cancun, Mexico, where he is 
 attending a two-day summit with the leaders of Canada and Mexico. 
  Speaking in Berlin, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said Carroll's 
 release is a "great delight and great relief."
  "This is something that people have across the world worked for and 
 prayed for, and I think we are all very pleased and happy to hear of her 
 release," she said.
  Carroll is reported to now be with friends and U.S. officials in the 
 Green Zone. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad says she has spoken to her 
 family by telephone.
  "As I said, she is in great spirit. I did spend some time with her. She 
 is anxious to get home, and we will do all that we can to help her get home as 
 quickly as possible," he said. 
  Ambassador Khalilzad thanked the Iraqi leaders who worked for Jill 
 Carroll's freedom, and he thanked the Iraqi Islamic Party for its help 
 after her release.
  The party's leader, Tariq Al-Hashemi, told reporters that party members 
 were astonished when the kidnapped journalist showed up at their office.
  "What happened today is that this lady arrived at 
 the headquarters of the Iraqi Islamic party without any advance notice 
 ," he said. "Our 
 employees and brothers were surprised, that a woman is knocking on the 
 door wearing Islamic attire. They thought she was a sister from the 
 party's women's office until she revealed her identity."
  He says she was holding a letter, written in Arabic, asking for the 
 party's help in returning her to U.S. authorities.
  Jill Carroll is a freelance reporter who was 
 working for the Christian Science Monitor newspaper when she was abducted 
 by a carload of gunmen in 
 early January. Her interpreter, Allan Enwiyeh, was killed. Carroll spent 
 82 days as a hostage, and there has been no public word from her captors 
 since a videotape broadcast in early February, in which they threatened to 
 kill her before the end of the month.
  The newspaper's editor, Richard Bergenheim, said 
 her colleagues at the paper are overjoyed 
 that she is free, and cannot wait to see her.
  "As you can imagine, this is just one of the most exciting days for all 
 of us," he said. "We were thrilled to hear that Jill Carroll has been 
 released and will be back with her family."
  The editor read a statement on behalf of the Carroll family.
  "Our hearts are full. We are elated by Jill's safe release," he said. 
 "We would like to thank all of the generous people around the world, who 
 worked officially or unofficially, especially those who took personal 
 risks to gain Jill's release."
  Ambassador Khalilzad would give few details of the circumstances 
 surrounding her release. When asked whether a ransom had been paid, he 
 said nobody from the U.S. embassy had "entered into any arrangements with 
 anyone."
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