WATERVILLE -- Hostage negotiations in Iraq should be taken over by Muslim negotiators, said Terry Waite, one of the world's most famous names in hostage crises and humanitarian work.

Slamming the unilateral path to war taken by the Bush administration, Waite warned that U.S. detainees at Guantanamo Bay represent a failure in the war against terror... "You don't fight terrorism by adopting methods of terrorists," he said. "Guantanamo Bay is a victory for terrorists. The freedoms developed here were hard-won. We have at a stroke undermined those freedoms by detaining people this way. We're all eventually being robbed of those freedoms."

Describing the unraveling security situation in Iraq as "a moral mess," Waite said Western leaders need to better understand the different strains of fundamentalism in the Islamic world.

"Islam has provided a unifying base, but there are really two types of fundamentalists," Waite said during an interview with the Morning Sentinel. "There are those who are highly religiously and politically motivated. Now, you can relate to them.

"Then there are the psychopaths -- there's no talking to them. The problem with the present situation is that it provides an opportunity for the psychopaths to come out."

In the pantheon of personalities in international crisis management, Waite carries a special weight. He already had a burnished reputation in hostage negotiations as the Archbishop of Canterbury's envoy when he was seized in 1987 by Islamic extremists while on a negotiating mission in Beirut, Lebanon.

Held for nearly five years, four in solitary confinement, Waite was tortured and beaten. His story is powerful not only for his survival, but in publicly forgiving his captors when he returned to Beirut in February.

Waite went into detail about that experience in his hourlong speech at Colby College, which ended in a standing ovation before a packed gallery. In that blow-by-blow account, he described how he went into negotiations alone and unarmed, and the importance of having truth on one's side.

"Truth is your final ally," he said. "When I was being interrogated, I could always stand on the truth, that I wasn't part of the Iran-Contra."

Waite's abduction had been the result of extremists suspecting he was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, a covert U.S. operation that traded arms with Iranians in exchange for hostages.

Since his release, Waite has devoted himself to humanitarian work. Among other missions, he has helped the homeless in Africa and street children in India and Colombia; and provided trauma counseling to children in Kosovo and the Middle East.

That breadth of experience underlies a stinging indictment of the Bush administration's approach to Iraq.

"There's no question that Saddam Hussein is brutal and repressive," Waite said. "Having said that, if you remove the dictator, inevitably, repressed groups will spring up and fight each other. Very quickly, they will turn against whoever is seen as the invading force, whose motives are questioned across the Arab world."

Waite believes that the spate of hostage-taking in Iraq -- of Americans, Chinese, and Japanese -- is the work of "splinter groups."

It is a situation that can be broken by turning to those such as Abdulmajid Al-Zindani, he said. A prominent cleric in Yemen, Al-Zindani is thought by some to be a fundamentalist sheik, but has issued "fatwas" -- religious declarations -- calling for the release of hostages in Iraq.

"They are the best people to deal with hostage negotiations," Waite said, "because the waters are so muddied by British and American involvement."

Because of his extensive dealings with Muslim factions in the Middle East, and of his capture, Waite still enjoys tremendous access in that part of the world.

Slamming the unilateral path to war taken by the Bush administration, Waite warned that U.S. detainees at Guantanamo Bay represent a failure in the war against terror.

He drew parallels between hostage-taking and U.S. methods in Guantanamo Bay, pointing out that the detainees were taken on suspicion, not allowed due process, and initially were allowed no communication with their families.

"You don't fight terrorism by adopting methods of terrorists," he said. "Guantanamo Bay is a victory for terrorists. The freedoms developed here were hard-won. We have at a stroke undermined those freedoms by detaining people this way. We're all eventually being robbed of those freedoms."

© Copyright 2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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