Al-Jazeera broadcast a video Wednesday showing an American, identified by the U.S. Embassy as Jeffrey Ake, a contractor taken hostage in Baghdad.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Al-Jazeera television broadcast a video Wednesday showing an American who had been kidnapped two days before. The U.S. Embassy said the man on the video appeared to be Jeffrey Ake, a contract worker who was kidnapped Monday while working on a water treatment plant near Baghdad.

Al-Jazeera didn't broadcast the tape's audio, but said the hostage asked the U.S. government to start a dialogue with the Iraqi resistance. It also said the man asked the U.S. government to begin withdrawing from Iraq and to save his life.

The tape showed a man sitting behind a wooden desk as three men pointed their guns toward him. He was holding what looked like a passport and a photo that appeared to show his wife and their three children.

Ake’s family and his company inthe US were following the FBI’s advice in not commenting, police Chief David Gariepy told reporters after meeting with the family.

More than 200 foreigners have been taken captive in Iraq in the past year, and more than 30 have been killed.

Iraqi resistance has not died out as Bush and the Neocons promised. American President George Bush invaded Iraq on cooked up premises and lies. No one in the Bush administration has been punished for the killing and slaughter they conducted and are conducting in Iraq. In fact the American electorate rewarded the spectacle of blood created by George Bush by re-electing him.