The truth about Jessica

2003-05-16 13:28

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.

- News24