I nominate Jessica Lynch for a Congressional Medal of Honor

Saving Private Lynch story 'flawed'
15 May, 2003
By John Kampfner


Private Jessica Lynch became an icon of the war, and 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 her story is one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived.

Private Lynch, a 19-year-old army clerk from Palestine, West Virginia, was captured when her company took a wrong turning just outside Nasiriya and was ambushed.

Nine of her comrades were killed and Private Lynch was taken to the local hospital, which at the time was swarming with Fedayeen. Eight days later US special forces stormed the hospital, capturing the "dramatic" events on a night vision camera.

They were said to have come under fire from inside and outside the building, but they made it to Lynch and whisked her away by helicopter.

Dr a-Houssona found no bullet wounds
Reports claimed that she had stab and bullet wounds and that she had been slapped about on her hospital bed and interrogated.

But Iraqi doctors in Nasiriya say they provided the best treatment they could for the soldier in the midst of war. She was assigned the only specialist bed in the hospital and one of only two nurses on the floor.

"I examined her, I saw she had a broken arm, a broken thigh and a dislocated ankle," said Dr Harith a-Houssona, who looked after her.

Jessica amnesia

"There was no [sign of] shooting, no bullet inside her body, no stab wound - only road traffic accident. They want to distort the picture. I don't know why they think there is some benefit in saying she has a bullet injury."

Witnesses told us that the special forces knew that the Iraqi military had fled a day before they swooped on the hospital.

Dr Uday was surprised by the manner of the rescue
"We were surprised. Why do this? There was no military, there were no soldiers in the hospital," said Dr Anmar Uday, who worked at the hospital.

"It was like a Hollywood film. They cried 'go, go, go', with guns and blanks without bullets, blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show for the American attack on the hospital - action movies like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan."

There was one more twist. Two days before the snatch squad arrived, Harith had arranged to deliver Jessica to the Americans in an ambulance.

But as the ambulance, with Private Lynch inside, approached a checkpoint American troops opened fire, forcing it to flee back to the hospital. The Americans had almost killed their prize catch.

When footage of the rescue was released, General Vincent Brooks, US spokesman in Doha, said: "Some brave souls put their lives on the line to make this happen, loyal to a creed that they know that they'll never leave a fallen comrade."

The American strategy was to ensure the right television footage by using embedded reporters and images from their own cameras, editing the film themselves.

The Pentagon had been influenced by Hollywood producers of reality TV and action movies, notably the man behind Black Hawk Down, Jerry Bruckheimer.

Bruckheimer advised the Pentagon on the primetime television series "Profiles from the Front Line", that followed US forces in Afghanistan in 2001. That approached was taken on and developed on the field of battle in Iraq.

As for Private Lynch, her status as cult hero is stronger than ever. Internet auction sites list Jessica Lynch items, from an oil painting with an opening bid of $200 to a $5 "America Loves Jessica Lynch" fridge magnet.

But doctors now say she has no recollection of the whole episode and probably never will.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/correspondent/3028585.stm
 
So the Iraqi who risked his life to walk to the American lines and report the story because he was so upset at the treatment she was getting, he was just imagining it all?
 
May 20, 2003
Robert Scheer:

Saving Private Lynch: Take 2

The rescue was pure Hollywood, reportedly a bit of Pentagon fiction.

In the 1998 film "Wag the Dog," political operatives employ special editing techniques to create phony footage that will engender public sympathy for a manufactured war. Now we find that in 2003 the real-life Pentagon's ability and willingness to manipulate the facts make Hollywood's story lines look tame.

After a thorough investigation, the British Broadcasting Corp. has presented a shocking dissection of the "heroic" rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch, as reported by the U.S. military and a breathless American press.

"Her story is one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived," the BBC concluded — the polite British way of saying "liar, liar, pants on fire."

Though the Bush administration's shamelessly trumped-up claims about Iraq's alleged ties to Al Qaeda and 9/11 and its weapons of mass destruction take the cake for deceitful propaganda — grand strategic lies that allow the United States' seizure of Iraq's oil to appear to be an act of liberation — the sad case of Lynch's exploitation at the hands of military spinners illustrates that the truth once again was a casualty of war.

Lynch, who says she has no memory of the events in question, has suffered enough in the line of duty without being reduced to a propaganda pawn.

Sadly, almost nothing fed to reporters about either Lynch's original capture by Iraqi forces or her "rescue" by U.S. forces turns out to be true. Consider the April 3 Washington Post story on her capture headlined "She Was Fighting to the Death," which reported, based on unnamed military sources, that Lynch "continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds," adding that she was also stabbed when Iraqi forces closed in.

It has since emerged that Lynch was neither shot nor stabbed, but rather suffered accident injuries when her vehicle overturned. A medical checkup by U.S. doctors confirmed the account of the Iraqi doctors, who said they had carefully tended her injuries, a broken arm and thigh and a dislocated ankle, in contrast to U.S. media reports that doctors had ignored Lynch.

Another report spread by news organizations nationwide claimed Lynch was slapped by an Iraqi security guard, and the U.S. military later insisted that an Iraqi lawyer witnessed this incident and informed them of Lynch's whereabouts. His credibility as a source, however, is difficult to verify because he and his family were whisked to the U.S., where he was immediately granted political asylum and has refused all interview requests. His future was assured with a job with a lobbying firm run by former Republican Rep. Bob Livingstone that represents the defense industry and a $500,000 book contract with HarperCollins, a company owned by Rupert Murdoch, whose Fox network did much to hype Lynch's story, as it did the rest of the war.

But where the manipulation of this saga really gets ugly is in the premeditated manufacture of the rescue itself, which stains those who have performed real acts of bravery, whether in war or peacetime.

Eight days after her capture, American media trumpeted the military's story that Lynch was saved by Special Forces that stormed the hospital and, in the face of heavy hostile fire, managed to scoop her up and helicopter her out.

However, according to the BBC, which interviewed the hospital's staff, the truth appears to be that not only had Iraqi forces abandoned the area before the rescue effort but that the hospital's staff had informed the U.S. of this and made arrangements two days before the raid to turn Lynch over to the Americans. "But as the ambulance, with Pvt. Lynch inside, approached the checkpoint, American troops opened fire, forcing it to flee back to the hospital. The Americans had almost killed their prize catch," the BBC reported.

"We were surprised," Dr. Anmar Uday told the BBC about the supposed rescue. "There was no military, there were no soldiers in the hospital. It was like a Hollywood film. [The U.S. forces] cried 'Go, go, go,' with guns and blanks without bullets, blanks and the sound of explosions," Uday said. "They made a show for the American attack on the hospital — [like] action movies [starring] Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan."

The footage from the raid, shot not by journalists but by soldiers with night-vision cameras, was fed in real time to the central command in Qatar. The video was artfully edited by the Pentagon and released as proof that a battle to free Lynch had occurred when it had not.

This fabrication has already been celebrated by an A&E special and will soon be an NBC movie. The Lynch rescue story — a made-for-TV bit of official propaganda — will probably survive as the war's most heroic moment, despite proving as fictitious as the stated rationales for the invasion itself.

If the movies, books and other renditions of "saving Private Lynch" were to be honestly presented, it would expose this caper as merely one in a series of egregious lies marketed to us by the Bush administration.
More...

http://www.latimes.com/la-oe-scheer20may20,0,4093805.column
 
Both the BBC story and Scheer's column that was uncritically based on it have been thoroughly debunked.

Many of the relevant stories can be found on the page from which the following summary originates:

THE MORE I THINK ABOUT IT, the more I wonder if the Jessica Lynch rescue wasn't a clever Pentagon disinformation campaign designed to entrap anti-American journalists into revealing their sloppiness, bias, and willingness to report untruths as fact. Then again, why bother? They seem to have some sort of credibility death-wish.

How else could you explain this Robert Scheer column, which takes the BBC story as an excuse to foam at the mouth in classically over-the-top Scheer fashion:


After a thorough investigation, the British Broadcasting Corp. has presented a shocking dissection of the "heroic" rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch, as reported by the U.S. military and a breathless American press.


A 'thorough investigation" that involved unnamed sources making charges that were not checked out, and people saying that the U.S. forces fired blanks, credulous repetition of unconfirmed facts by parties with an interest in lying, and obvious ignorance of matters military, as well as misrepresentation of the coverage at the time, and that has been contradicted by other reports from the scene.

Of course, to Scheer any investigation is thorough if it reflects badly on the U.S. military and the Bush Administration. Scheer even repeats the "firing blanks" claim -- one that makes no sense on its face to anyone who knows anything. Too bad for Scheer that he's been left hanging by the BBC's own backpedaling on the story.

The L.A. area really needs a new newspaper that will keep an eye on the Los Angeles Times.

UPDATE: BIASED-BBC has more on this, and has preserved the story in case it "quietly changes," as BBC stories have been known to do. It notes:


What is interesting is that (as of 9.50pm) nearly all of the comments supporting the Kampfner version and praising the BBC story are predicated on the assumption that a Pentagon fraud has been revealed by the BBC. But Kampfner himself says there was no fraud. See the first question and answer of the CNN interview linked to below:


HARRIS: Is it your belief right now based upon your investigation that this rescue of Lynch was in any way a staged event and not real?

KAMPFNER: No.


That wasn't all his answer, of course. He then goes on to say all sorts of other stuff along the lines of "the US military are spinmeisters" which is true but not the point. The point is that the journalist who started the story when asked whether it is now his opinion that the rescue was faked answered with a unambiguous No. Wouldn't it be more responsible of the BBC to say this loud and clear?


It would have saved Robert Scheer from looking like an idiot today, anyway.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I was on Hugh Hewitt's show earlier tonight. It wasn't my best performance -- I took ten minutes out of a Brownies parents' meeting to do it by cellphone -- but Hewitt is clearly on Scheer's case and is smelling blood. I should note that the Scheer article also treats the Saddam / Al Qaeda connection as bogus, which seems pretty damn bogus itself to me -- plenty of evidence of an Al Qaeda connection has come out since the war, and even Robert Fisk was reporting that the Fedayeen were basically Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda-style non-Iraqi Arab Islamists.

Meanwhile, Roger Simon says that Scheer is "making an ass of himself" with this, and adds:


I think this is all kind of sad actually (small s) because I'm sure Scheer is fundamentally a good guy and a good journalist. The problem is he's been reified. Scheer should know that word--it's pure Sartrean sixties. It means, essentially, objectified as a product for sale. He's spent so many years as a professional dispenser of left/liberal orthodoxy he's terrified to see things objectively. He might lose his place in the market.


Indeed.
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http://www.instapundit.com/archives/009660.php#009660
 
Quote from KymarFye:

Both the BBC story and Scheer's column that was uncritically based on it have been thoroughly debunked.

Many of the relevant stories can be found on the page from which the following summary originates:
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could you point out where it was "thoroughly debunked"?

the blog, and the other sections of the same blog it links to, seem to contain only more unsubstantiated opinion and, naturally, more self-righteous ad hominem drivel.

neither the line of the cited BBC article, nor calling the author an idiot foaming at the mouth refute the claims or explain why the pentagon refuses to release the original footage. it is difficult to determine the truth here - both sides have been less than clear.
 
Quote from Madison:



could you point out where it was "thoroughly debunked"?
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Yeah, I'd like to see that too.


Surely Kymar doesn't consider the piece of playground name-calling that he posted as having "thoroughly debunked" anything? So, come on Kymar, quit hiding the good stuff (if you have it).

Specifically, I'd like to see the following points addressed:

- the "amnesia" Private Lynch is suffering. (Sure comes in handy.)

- did she or did she not suffer bullet and stab wounds? Why should we ignore the testimony of the doctors who treated her who say that there was no evidence (you think they'd know) of such wounds?

- why aren't we being shown the unedited footage of the alleged assault?

- the reliability of the testimony of the Iraqi lawyer; who, apparently, is refusing to answer any question and has a $500k book deal lined up.

- the incident with the ambulance.
 
Quote from Madison:



could you point out where it was "thoroughly debunked"?

the blog, and the other sections of the same blog it links to, seem to contain only more unsubstantiated opinion and, naturally, more self-righteous ad hominem drivel.

neither the line of the cited BBC article, nor calling the author an idiot foaming at the mouth refute the claims or explain why the pentagon refuses to release the original footage. it is difficult to determine the truth here - both sides have been less than clear.
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We'll probably be dead and gone before the Pentagon ever releases full unedited video from a Special Forces operation of any significance. For reasons that should be obvious, the military has always been reluctant to share information of potential tactical value, and should be. They would prefer to conceal even a lack of unique tactical information in the conduct of such an operation.

Anyway, whose opinion needs to be "substantiated" here? The military reported an action - a rescue conducted by Special Forces - and presented video footage that did not, contrary to Scheer's claims, in any way suggest that a "battle" had gone on. There were no images of explosions or of anyone firing weapons, with or without "blanks." (Gen. Brooks' statement that the soldiers had been risking their lives, on the other hand, stands uncontradicted. Even if the hospital/command post had been evacuated by the Fedayeen prior to the rescue, until and unless a war zone has been "cleared" - and even then - entering it remains a risky undertaking.) If reporters at various news outlets got other aspects of the story wrong, then that's not the responsibility of CENTCOM or anyone else in a position of authority. And how are they to control "unnamed military sources" who supposedly passed on a more dramatic story? That's like making the FBI responsible for Jayson Blair's stories on the DC sniper case.

If Scheer or anyone is going to claim that the event was "staged," then the burden is on them to provide proof. One of the blog pages goes into a great detail on the journalistic flaws in the original story. Others address various aspects of the alternative story that defy credulity - such as the idea that US Special Forces would or even realistically COULD enter a war zone armed with "blanks." One possible and more likely explanation is that the individual quoted by the BBC reporter had no idea what kind of ammunition was being carried, and was simply exaggerating to make his point, and that Scheer took up the claim literally and uncritically.

When asked on CNN to give a bottom line, the BBC reporter confirmed that he could not accuse the military of perpetrating a "fraud." He dodged other questions, but did go on to expose his own bias against the American military. Subsidiary details, such as the multiple ambulance stories or the apparently conflicting descriptions by supposed eyewitnesses at the hospital, are dealt with either in pages linked directly on the Instapundit page, or further down the link tree. It is impossible for us to check the "truth" of any of the competing claims out, but many aspects of the "alternative story" in its extreme form don't make sense. The most you can fairly conclude, as Glenn Reynolds/Instapundit points out, is that the US milked the event for publicity. As he so eloquently puts it, "Duh."

If you can can read through all of this material and still conclude that Scheer was justified in his "Wag the Dog" accusations, then I have to wonder what could possibly cause you to doubt him.
 
Quote from alfonso:



Specifically, I'd like to see the following points addressed:

- the "amnesia" Private Lynch is suffering. (Sure comes in handy.)
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Not unusual. And who cares?

- did she or did she not suffer bullet and stab wounds? Why should we ignore the testimony of the doctors who treated her who say that there was no evidence (you think they'd know) of such wounds?
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The matter was discussed in some detail at various points in the saga. The only contradictions that exist are in press accounts, not in official statements, as far as I recall, but someone else will have to answer for you more definitively - presuming someone cares.

- why aren't we being shown the unedited footage of the alleged assault?
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There was no "alleged assault." There was an actual rescue operation. As for unedited footage: See above, and, anyway, what makes you think you have any right to it?

- the reliability of the testimony of the Iraqi lawyer; who, apparently, is refusing to answer any question and has a $500k book deal lined up.
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The proof of his veracity was, among other minor details, the actual rescue of PFC Lynch.

I can't say anything about the book deal and the figure attached to it, but, if it's true that he's made a deal, then it's hardly surprising that he would be expected to keep whatever else there might be to the story to himself prior to publication.

Personally, I don't really care: I was more interested in the lame attempt to make Wag the Dog accusations on this story, which on its own terms never seemed very significant to me - for anyone other than those immediately involved - except as a bit of wartime sentimentality.

But as far as "reliable testimony" goes, what about the supposed witnesses haphazardly and unverifiably quoted by the BBC reporter?

Let's say you're a hospital worker - doctor, nurse, orderly, janitor - who's lived his or her entire life in a totalitarian state where saying the wrong thing can get you killed. Your country has just come under the control of military occupiers, and a foreigner approaches you with questions about an incident that has attracted a lot of interest, one involving a female American soldier. I think your answer would go... something like this: "Oh, yes, of course, she was treated very, very well. She was given special treatment! We all were very kind to her. Everyone was very kind to her, yes. There was no danger to her. She did not even need to be rescued! Earlier, we even tried to bring her back, but, then, it was too dangerous. It was two days ago. But it was too dangerous. The Fedayeen? Well, actually come to think of it maybe it was yesterday that we tried to take her to the Americans, but they fired upon our ambulance so we had to bring her back to the hospital. Do you not think we deserve a reward?"

- the incident with the ambulance.
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See above. Multiple inconsistent stories. And, oh yeah, why do you care?
 
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