Free Pvt. Jessica Lynch

[thedrifter]

06-05-2003

From the Editor:

Free Pvt. Jessica Lynch

By Ed Offley



John McCain said it best: When once asked to describe his heroism as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, the former Navy flier deadpanned, ?It was nothing, really. I hit a missile with my airplane.? Someday, I trust, 19-year-old Jessica Lynch will have an opportunity to say something similarly droll.



But for now, the silence surrounding the injured Army private is getting pretty deafening.



More than two months have passed since that convoy from the Fort Bliss-based 507th Maintenance Co. drove down the wrong road into Nasiriyah, Iraq, and into an Iraqi ambush where American 11 soldiers died and Lynch and five others were taken prisoner. In that time, the Iraqi regime fell, major combat operations in Iraq ended, a large number of troops have come home, and the Bush administration has moved on to other issues, primarily the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.



But Lynch ? and more curiously, the Defense Department ? remain Sphinx-like in their silence.



What?s going on here?



The official rationale that the Nasiriyah ambush remains under investigation is wearing a bit thin. It is especially curious because while there was loss of life in the ambush, the normal elements that can gum up an after-action probe such as highly-classified equipment or procedures, or politically-sensitive aspects such as an incident involving the U.S. and an allied government, were clearly not a factor.



What we can say about the Lynch story is that the absence of facts has spawned rumor, speculation and even some malevolent spinning aimed at tarnishing the image of the entire U.S. military force that took down Saddam Hussein. Consider:



* The first in-depth report on the incident, appearing in The Washington Post on Apr. 3, and obviously fed to the newspaper by DoD sources with an axe to grind, portrayed the young soldier as Col. William Barrett Travis at the Alamo:



?Pfc. Jessica Lynch, rescued Tuesday from an Iraqi hospital, fought fiercely and shot several enemy soldiers after Iraqi forces ambushed the Army?s 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition, U.S. officials said yesterday. Lynch ? continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds and watched several other soldiers in her unit die around her in fighting March 23, one official said. ? ?She was fighting to the death,? the official said. ?She did not want to be taken alive.? ?



As we now know, the Post?s sources were smoking their socks. Lynch suffered injuries to her head and broken bones in both legs and her back when the supply truck in which she was riding flipped over during the ambush. Iraqi doctors who treated her at the Nasiriyah hospital told reporters she was unconscious when Iraqi soldiers brought her there. Hospital staff members later said they tried to return Lynch to U.S. troops but the ambulance carrying her was fired on, so the driver returned to the hospital.



The dramatic nighttime rescue of Pvt. Lynch by a joint Special Operations rescue team, filmed by a DoD combat camera crew, dominated world headlines when it occurred and made the injured soldier one of the most famous images of the entire campaign. It also spawned a prolonged backlash in the news media:



* On May 7, ABC news followed up on an earlier Toronto Star newspaper report alleging that U.S. forces knew they would face no Iraqi opposition, and unnecessarily frightened the hospital staff and caused a lot of unnecessary property damage. ABC anchor Peter Jennings cracked that the rescue raid ?may have been less dangerous and maybe even less challenging than Central Command first told us,? clearly impugning the mission.



* Several weeks later, the BBC charged that the entire mission was a sham: That the U.S. commandos had actually fired blanks rather than live ammunition. And the BBC added that the U.S. command actually knew that the Iraqi officials and Fedayeen fighters who had been using the hospital as a headquarters had already left the scene. The British network also hinted that the troops had abused the hospital staff by handcuffing them.



Again, the Pentagon was silent. And DoD sources now told reporters that Lynch was suffering amnesia.



Thanks to NBC news, a slightly more nuanced account of the hospital raid has emerged. Rather than firing blanks, the commandos were using ?flash-bang? stun grenades, and did not discharge their weapons inside the building. And hospital staffers both confirmed that Iraqi regime thugs had been using their facility as a military headquarters, and clarified that they were not abused by the rescue force.



* Lynch?s father told reporters on May 30 that his 19-year-old daughter did not, after all, suffer from amnesia. ?We're really not supposed to talk about that subject,? Greg Lynch told The Los Angeles Times, although he later said they were not under a formal gag order.



* Democratic Party presidential candidate Dennis J. Kucinich on June 3 called on the Pentagon to release the unedited recorded footage of the rescue mission.



Why allow this issue to become a major distraction and political ammunition for irresponsible news media and politicians?



Bring forth a Pentagon official who can fully brief the press on the events of the ambush in Nasiriyah, warts and all. Allow Pvt. Lynch herself to say what happened that horrible night her unit was attacked. End this corrosive silence. Release the facts.



Ed Offley is Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at dweditor@yahoo.com.


Sempers,

Roger