PM - Stories from the war zone
[This is the print version of story
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2003/s900425.htm]
PM - Friday, 11 July , 2003 18:34:00
Reporter: Nick Grimm
MARK COLVIN: Remember the media hysteria surrounding the rescue of the American Private Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital?
Somehow, the American authorities let it be known that Private Lynch had fought like a lion against overwhelming odds before her Iraqi captors took her to a hospital in Nasiriyah.
To complete the script, there was then a dangerous special forces raid to free her. Now, though, the Pentagon itself says Private Lynch was not injured battling Iraqi soldiers. All her injuries came from the original vehicle collision.
The way that her story of capture and rescue were re-invented for the public have again raised questions about the quality of the information provided before, during and after the war.
Nick Grimm has our report.
NEWS REPORT: Dramatic images of the rescue of Private Jessica Lynch.
NICK GRIMM: It had Hollywood screenplay written all-over it.
NEWS REPORT: Both her legs are broken, she has a broken arm and gun shot wounds, but her family is over joyed.
ARI FLEISCHER: The President's reaction was 'that's great'.
NICK GRIMM: Certainly, all the elements seemed to be there: a young and photogenic American soldier, who had fought until her weapon's last bullet in a failed attempt to avoid capture by Iraqi soldiers, who then suffered torture and mistreatment at the hands of her captors until the staging of a dramatic and dangerous rescue operation.
NEWS REPORT: The return of Jessica Lynch sounds more like a movie script. And it probably will be soon.
ARI FLEISCHER: But there's no question this is a good day, a good moment, and the President is very proud of what took place.
NICK GRIMM: At the time Private Jessica Lynch's story provided coalition military commanders with some positive news for the world's media.
VINCE BROOKS: PFC Jessica Lynch. At this point she is safe.
NICK GRIMM: General Vince Brooks.
VINCE BROOKS: She's been retrieved and some brave souls put their lives on the line to make this happen. Loyal to a creed that they know, that they will never leave a fallen comrade and they will never embarrass their country.
NICK GRIMM: But now it appears the Private Lynch story was just that – a good story, which seems to have undergone several major departures from the facts. So what really occurred during the incident in the early days of the Iraq war, when Private Lynch's unit, the 507th maintenance company, engaged with the enemy?
For a start, reports of her comrades being executed were wrong.
ARLENE WALTERS: I think he died standing out there in the sand, fighting.
NICK GRIMM: This is Arlene Walters, mother of one of those killed, Sergeant Donald Walters.
ARLENE WALTERS: If he was standing out there fighting them by himself, which I think he was, I think credit where credit's due.
RANDY KEEL (phonetic): When this all started there was talk of public executions and now having read through this, Janey, my wife and I know that James did not die as a public execution, that he died defending what he went to do.
NICK GRIMM: Randy Keel, whose son James Keel, also died in the ambush. Now the families of those killed, captured or injured are finally learning what happened. According to a Pentagon report, blunders and malfunctions contributed to the deaths of 11 soldiers and the capture of six others.
After 70 hours on the road, racing across the Iraqi desert, the soldiers took a wrong turn, blundered into an ambush by the Iraqi army, then struggled to defend themselves as their weapons jammed because they will filled with dust. In the ensuing confusion, one of their vehicles apparently ran out of petrol.
Survivor Sergeant Curtis Campbell.
CURTIS CAMPBELL: Came to find that someone was stuck in the truck at the back and they never made it out, they never made it through the ambush at all.
NICK GRIMM: Private Lynch's humvee crashed into another American army vehicle, causing the only injuries she sustained. After her rescue, her parents claimed that military doctors told them she had received bullet wounds. That was false.
Meanwhile the Iraqi doctors who cared for Jessica Lynch until her dramatic rescue by American Special Forces have also cast doubt on claims she was tortured or mistreated.
Rather, they talk of how attached hospital staff became to the polite young girl from West Virginia and how they attempted to return her to American forces, but her ambulance driver was shot at a checkpoint in the process.
Questions are also being asked about whether coalition commanders over-exaggerated the danger of the rescue operation.
AMERICAN MILITARY REPRESENTATIVE: There was not a fire fight inside of the building I will tell you, but there were fire fights outside of the building getting in and getting out.
NICK GRIMM: According to civilians at the hospital, when American Special Forces arrived, Iraqi forces were long gone.
MARK COLVIN: Nick Grimm reporting.
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