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The truth about Jessica
16/05/2003
13:28 - (SA)
Cape Town - Jessica Lynch became an icon of the recent
Iraqi war. An all-American heroine, the story of her capture
by the Iraqis and her rescue by US special forces became one
of the great patriotic moments of the conflict.
But, according to foreign news reports, it now appears that
the United States defence department's account of the storming
of the Nasiriya hospital was grossly inaccurate and heavily
dramatised by the Pentagon's savvy propaganda experts.
John Kampfner, who hosts a BBC exposé on the raid that airs
this Sunday, wrote on Thursday in the Guardian, "Lynch's rescue will go down as
one of the most stunning pieces of news management yet
conceived.
"It provides a remarkable insight into the real influence
of Hollywood producers on the Pentagon's media managers, and
has produced a template from which America hopes to present
its future wars."
Kampfner reports that in the early hours of April 2,
correspondents in Doha were summoned from their beds to
Centcom, the military and media nerve centre for the war.
The story they were told has entered American folklore.
Private Lynch, a 19-year-old clerk from Palestine, West
Virginia, was a member of the US Army's 507th Ordnance
Maintenance Company that took a wrong turning near Nassiriya
and was ambushed. Nine of her US comrades were killed. Iraqi
soldiers took Lynch to the local hospital, which was swarming
with fedayeen, where she was held for eight days. That much is
uncontested.
"Releasing its five-minute film to the networks, the
Pentagon claimed that Lynch had stab and bullet wounds, and
that she had been slapped about on her hospital bed and
interrogated. It was only thanks to a courageous Iraqi lawyer,
Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, that she was saved. According to the
Pentagon, Al-Rehaief risked his life to alert the Americans
that Lynch was being held.
But as Salon.com reports the problem is that the
Iraqi hospital staff did everything possible under very tough
conditions not only to protect Jessica from her captors, but
also to care of her as if she were one of their own family.
This according to reporters from CNN and several newspapers
who have interviewed hospital staff since the rescue.
'Daring' assault
Kampfner reports in the Guardian that just after midnight,
Army Rangers and Navy Seals stormed the Nassiriya hospital.
Their "daring" assault on enemy territory was captured by the
military's night-vision camera. They were said to have come
under fire, but they made it to Lynch and whisked her away by
helicopter. That was the message beamed back to viewers within
hours of the rescue."
But as Salon.com reports when the Navy Seals, armed to the
eyeballs, crashed their way into the hospital - there were no
Iraqi troops there. They had left almost two days before, when
it became apparent that the US-led coalition was about to take
Nasiriya.
Which raises a sticky question: After the rescue, a
military briefer told reporters that there were firefights not
inside the hospital but "outside the building getting in and
out."
But as Dr Harith al-Houssona told the Guardian and the
Toronto Star, two days before the American raid, a few of the
senior hospital staff attempted to send Jessica back to the
Americans in an ambulance.
"I told her I will try and help you escape to the American
Army," he said, "but I will do this very secretly because I
could lose my life."
They bundled her into an ambulance and instructed the
driver to take her to the US checkpoint, just a kilometre
away. "But when the ambulance got within 300 metres, they
began to shoot," said Dr al-Houssona.
'We have Jessica'
"There wasn't even a chance to tell them, 'We have Jessica.
Take her.'" So the ambulance brought her back to the hospital.
Salon.com says there's more: Fox News reports that, to
confirm Jessica's location, "officials with the Defence
Intelligence Agency equipped and trained an Iraqi informant
with a concealed video camera. On the day of the raid, the
informant walked around the hospital, videotaping entrances
and a route to Lynch's room."
If true, wouldn't the military planners have known there
were no Iraqi forces inside the hospital when they made the
raid? Were the slam-bang commando tactics mostly for show?
According to different interviews with the doctors, there
were anywhere from one to three cameramen in uniform with the
raiding team.
As Salon.com puts it in their report: "Could we be making a
made-for-television movie about a made-for-television movie?"
Read the full Guardian article here.
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