|
|
|||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
News Search
|
|
24-6-2003 Scotsman The truth and Private Lynch By Gethin Chamberlain It was the human interest story of the war, the daring rescue of a young, blonde US girl soldier from under the noses of the Iraqi forces. "America doesn't leave its heroes behind, it never has, it never will," one US official said, and they proved it. There was even grainy, dramatic video footage of the rescue, special forces soldiers bursting into the hospital building where she was being treated and snatching her to safety, wrapped in the Stars and Stripes. It was fantastic television and within hours it was front page news around the world. More than two months on, Jessica Lynch lies in a hospital bed in a private wing of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, her body shattered by the injuries she sustained in Iraq. Lucky even to be alive, the 19-year-old has become an all-American hero. The woman everyone wants to talk to is in such demand that military police officers have had to be posted outside her door to keep unwanted visitors at bay. Those visitors include journalists vying eagerly to be the first to tell her story. Because, despite the millions of words that have been written about her capture and subsequent rescue, no-one is really very sure what did happen to Private Lynch. The initial perception of an American triumph has been torn apart by critics who have questioned everything from the extent of the young soldier's injuries to whether she needed to be rescued at all. The telling of the story has become the story. The basic allegation is that the US military took a bungled operation in which troops who should have been nowhere near the danger zone were ambushed and either killed or captured and turned it into a PR triumph by manipulating the facts and stage-managing an unnecessary rescue to boost morale at home. One BBC presenter, Nik Gowing, claimed that the media had fallen for a piece of "gross manipulation" and that no-one would ever trust the Pentagon again. The BBC's Correspondent programme branded the rescue "one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived". It questioned the nature of her injuries, cast doubt on the claim that there had been Iraqi forces guarding the hospital when the US troops went in, suggested that the rescuers were firing blank ammunition and concluded that she had been well-treated by Iraqi doctors. The columnist Brian Sewell demanded to know: "Would so many men and so much expensive machinery have been risked for the rescue of a jar-head marine of 19, a black boy of 19, a homosexual boy of 19 or a poor white boy of 19 from the same incestuous hills of West Virginia among which Jessica was born?" Other newspapers revisited the story and raised doubts about some of the more colourful elements. The Washington Post noted that neither the Pentagon nor the White House had publicly dispelled the romantic embellishments. But, and the question has to be asked: why should they? There is little doubt that the US military publicity machine was delighted with the way the story was covered and that some parts of that machine were guilty of colluding with journalists eager to take it further. From the moment they put out that dramatic video tape, the US military knew that this story would play around the world. The truth is that much of what has subsequently been shown to be wrong about the story came not from official Pentagon or Whitehouse briefings, but from its endless retelling. The tale of Jessica Lynch is a modern folk story, and like all good folk stories, it has taken on a life of its own. There are two basic versions of the Jessica Lynch story. The first, which has entered American folklore, is that she and her convoy were ambushed as they advanced through Nasiriyah and although she fought to the bitter end, she was finally captured and dragged off to a hospital where she was tortured and ill-treated and eventually snatched from under the noses of her captors in a daring commando raid. The second, revisionist, story is that her convoy was ambushed after becoming lost, her gun jammed, her vehicle crashed and she was rescued by Iraqi forces who took her to hospital where she was well looked after, until an unnecessary and stage-managed raid snatched her away from the care of the doctors and back to the US. So, which one is true? One fact that is uncontested is that Jessica Lynch comes from the small farming community of Palestine, West Virginia. The daughter of Greg, a truck driver, and Deirde, who works for a photographic reproduction company, she was the second of three children. As a child, she was said to be something of a tomboy, but grew into a teenager whose likeable personality earned her the title of Miss Congeniality at the county fair. She wanted to be a teacher, but Palestine is not one of America's richer communities and to achieve her goal, she needed money for college. To get it, she joined the US army. As a supplies clerk in the 507th Maintenance Company, a unit whose role was to repair army vehicles, she thought she would be able to watch the war from a safe distance. Even when she knew she was going to the Gulf, her family thought she would be far from the action. Thanks to a series of blunders that did not turn out to be the case. What appears to have happened is that on 23 March her company, travelling in convoy behind the US 3rd Infantry Division, became separated from the main force outside the town of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq. Poor communications and breakdowns have been variously blamed for the separation of the convoy, but while the main group took one route around the city, Lynch's column never received the message to take the same detour and ploughed on along the wrong road. Tired and separated from the main fighting force, by the time they realised they were in trouble, it was too late. Under intense fire, several soldiers were killed, others captured. This is where the reports start to diverge. According to the account, which has been the subject of much debate and criticism, Lynch fought to the bitter end, expending all her ammunition even though she had been hit by gunfire, finally succumbing to capture only once she had been stabbed in hand-to-hand fighting. The trouble with this report is that it did not emerge until after Lynch's release, by which time she had already become a household name in the US. It appears to stem initially from a story published in the Washington Post - which to its credit has since revisited the whole story in minute detail and tried to put the record right - published on 4 April. The report quotes one unnamed official who said Jessica was captured after a fierce fire-fight in which she had fought to the bitter end. The Post report said: "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, US officials said yesterday." The paper said that Lynch had continued to return fire even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds and despite seeing several other soldiers in her unit killed. "She was fighting to the death. She did not want to be taken alive," the paper quoted the official as saying. And it went further. The unnamed official also told the paper that Lynch had been stabbed towards the end of the battle and the paper noted that one early intelligence report indicated that she had been stabbed to death. Earlier reports after her capture made no mention of this detail. Instead, reports on 25 and 26 March mentioned only that an American teenager who enlisted because she could not find another job was missing, presumed dead, along with another woman from the same unit, Private Lori Piestewa, 22. They had not been heard of since the weekend, when their supply convoy had been ambushed, the reports said. Even on the day after the rescue, by which time the US Army publicity machine would have had time to spread the word, there was no mention of heroic last stands, although she had by this time acquired gunshot wounds. Those who dispute this version of events point to new accounts from military sources which state that Lynch's gun jammed, and question whether she was able to return fire at all. They also point to the nature of her injuries, which are consistent with a road accident rather than a gunfight. But it is possible that both are right. What seems to have happened is that Lynch's convoy came under attack and returned fire. Eyewitness Sahib Khudher, a farmer, has reported seeing the convoy involved in a running battle with fedayeen militia men. "There was shooting, shooting everywhere," he told the Washington Post. "There were accidents, too. Crash sounds. You could see and hear the vehicles hitting each other. And yelling. Screaming. I could hear English." A US official described it as a "very harrowing, very intense" gun battle. At some point during the fire-fight Lynch's vehicle is thought to have broken down and she got into a Humvee driven by Piestewa. Troops in that vehicle are believed to have returned fire, according to US officials. Their version, again reported by the Post, is that as the Humvee tried to escape, it was hit by a rocket propelled grenade which exploded next to Piestewa, fatally injuring her and causing her to swerve and hit a lorry. Most of those in the vehicle were killed, but Lynch, although badly injured, survived. The story of the firefight is also backed up by the accounts of seven other soldiers from the same unit - who were themselves the subject of a later rescue by US forces, somewhat undermining the argument that Lynch alone was rescued because she was young, female and attractive. The soldiers, interviewed later, talked of a fierce fire-fight. Private Patrick Miller said it was like a scene from a movie. Sergeant James Riley said that when they eventually surrendered, they were beaten with sticks and kicked by the Iraqi fighters before being blindfolded and tied up. No-one disputes that Lynch, so badly injured that one eyewitness thought she was dead, was subsequently picked up by the Iraqi forces and taken initially to the Iraqi military hospital of Nasiriyah. Again according to the Post report, intercepted Iraqi communications talked about a blonde American soldier who had fought bravely and other intelligence suggested she had expended all her ammunition. All reports appear to agree that the military hospital patched her up quite well. Adnan Mushafafawi, an Iraqi medical corps Brigadier, said Piestewa - who was brought in with Lynch - had gunshot wounds and a severe head injury and died shortly after arriving. Lynch, he said, had multiple fractures and a minor head injury. She needed blood transfusions, which she received, and splints were applied to the fractures. Shortly afterwards, she was transferred to the Saddam Hussein General Hospital in Nasiriyah. Again, this is where reports of her treatment diverge. There was talk of torture, of one witness seeing a man slap her across the face. That witness was Mohammed Odeh Rehaief, a lawyer, who is said to have left the hospital and alerted US Marines on the other side of the town to the presence of Lynch in the hospital, and her treatment. Rehaief has since been granted political asylum in the US with his wife. He is believed to be writing a book about his version of events. The report that Lynch had been tortured, however, again came not from military officials, but from NBC reporter Kerry Sanders, who reported that an English speaking Iraqi had approached him to tell him where Jessica was being held and what was happening to her. "Please make sure the people in charge know that she's being tortured," the man, believed to be Rehaief, is reported to have told Sanders. But even as those reports were being picked up by other papers, there were equally clear denials coming from named US officials stating that Lynch had been neither shot nor stabbed, and reports from doctors in the hospital countering the torture claims and insisting that she had been well treated. It is the rescue itself, however, that is the cause of the most bitter disagreements. Totally unnecessary, say the hospital doctors and those who dispute the official US version of events. The hospital may initially have been teeming with Iraqi fighters but they had left on the morning of the rescue. Defensive positions dug in the grounds of the hospital had been abandoned. One doctor even described how he drove Lynch towards the US positions to hand her over once the militia had gone, only to be forced to turn back when he came under fire from US troops. The rescue, however, went ahead. US military sources say that they had been monitoring the hospital for days and the information they had received suggested that it was being used as a base for military operations. They may have spotted the Iraqi fighters withdrawing, but they did not trust them to stay away. There appears to be little doubt that the US spin doctors had spotted an opportunity for a much-needed propaganda coup. The rescue mission was handed to Task Force 20, a special operations unit that only handles the most important jobs and arrangements were made to film the raid for the benefit of the world's media. At about 1am the commandos swooped down on the hospital grounds in Blackhawk helicopters, under covering fire from giant AC-130 gunships. According to military sources, they came under fire from people outside the hospital walls, but not inside. At the same time, another armoured unit launched a diversionary attack on the other side of Nasiriyah. Critics of the raid say that it was stage-managed and over-dramatic. They claim that the US troops were firing blank rounds to create an impression of drama, when in reality the building was undefended and they could simply have walked in. US military sources, however, say that the blanks were explosive charges intended to disorient those inside the building. They would argue that they could not have known for certain what they would find inside the hospital and they handled the raid as any unit would do which suspected it could be opposed. The moment the troops found Lynch, however, is not recorded, leading to accusations from some quarters of careful editing of the footage to suit US purposes. The only account of that moment came from Air Force Major General Victor Renuart, who told reporters that a commando called out: "Jessica Lynch, we're United States soldiers and we're here to protect you and take you home." Her purported reply has become legendary: "I'm an American soldier, too," she is said to have told her rescuers. It sounds like spin, and it probably is. But does that mean that the entire Jessica Lynch story was a work of fiction dreamt up by the US military? Something happened to Jessica Lynch on 23 March, something which left her deeply traumatised and suffering from terrible injuries. That she survived was little short of a miracle. That the US forces managed to find her and take her home was the icing on the cake. Every major news organisation in north America - and a good many others, too - is now scrambling to be the one to tell that story, although if the young woman in that hospital bed remembers as little as people say, they may all be out of luck. But that won't be the end of it. The Jessica Lynch story has a life of its own.
|
|
||||
|
................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
|||||||
