Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, Ninth District, IL
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Was Lynch rescue made up? 2 Illinois pols want to know
 

May 25th, 2003

by Lynn Sweet

Evanston Review

The dramatic rescue of captured Pfc. Jessica Lynch from her hospital bed in Iraq by the U.S. Special Forces quickly became one of the signature episodes of the Iraq war.

Now two Illinois lawmakers and another from New York want the Defense Department to investigate whether the story that seems too good to be true really is.

Democrats Rahm Emanuel and Jan Schakowsky are disturbed by a British Broadcasting Corp. documentary called "Saving Private Jessica: Fact or Fiction?'" that claims her daring rescue was not quite what it seemed.

"We need to have an independent inquiry to look at what happened," said Schakowsky. The Pentagon discounted the BBC report, but Schakowsky said there should be another look.

Emanuel, who represents a North Side and suburban district next to Schakowsky's, sent a letter last week to Joseph Schmitz, the Defense Department inspector general, asking for a probe. The letter was co-signed by Rep. Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat.

While Lynch's rescue was "emblematic of the courage and dedication of our Armed Forces," states the Emanuel-Slaughter letter, the BBC report raised troubling questions as to whether the rescue was "a premeditated fabrication. This story and other reports that followed have threatened to tarnish the image of this daring rescue."

Emanuel and Slaughter state that they want an investigation into the BBC allegations to ensure that the rescuers' "selfless act of heroism is never questioned again."

The storm was set off by BBC reporter John Kampfner, maker of the documentary. In a BBC.com story, Kampfner wrote that the Lynch saga, as portrayed by the Pentagon, is "one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived."

The Lynch rescue April 1 drew tremendous media coverage and will be revived as an NBC made-for-television movie.

The storyline remains appealing. Lynch, a 19-year-old from Palestine, W.Va., was a clerk whose supply unit was supposed to be in the rear of the advancing U.S. troops. Somehow, her convoy got lost, and in an ambush, Lynch was captured and nine of her colleagues were killed.

U.S. troops were tipped off to Lynch's whereabouts in a Nasiriyah hospital by an Iraqi lawyer who, at great risk, walked six miles until he found some Marines.

According to Newsweek's April 14 edition, which featured Lynch on the cover, the Iraqi man, who said he witnessed Lynch being slapped around, was twice sent back to the hospital on reconnaissance missions.

About eight days later, Lynch was rescued, with the operation--or at least parts of it--caught by soldiers using a night vision camera. Last month, Pentagon officials gave the impression that the raid was carried out against potentially dangerous resistance.

Kampfner, however, alleges that the U.S. troops came under no fire because Iraqi fighters had fled the hospital the day before.

The extent of Lynch's injuries has never been detailed, though Newsweek quoted a family member and a commander of a U.S. hospital in Germany as saying she had been shot.

"I examined her. I saw she had a broken arm, a broken thigh and a dislocated ankle," Dr. Harith a-Houssona told Kampfner, suggesting that her injury was caused by a "traffic accident."

A story in the Toronto Star and another in the Times of London also raised questions about the U.S. version of events.

The Iraqi lawyer, Mohammed Oden al-Rehaief, and his family were whisked off to the United States.

And the ending to his story?

Al-Rehaief now has an office with a Washington lobbying firm, the Livingston Group, whose principal is the former powerful Republican House member Robert Livingston.

With his own book and other deals pending, al-Rehaief is not saying much.


 

 

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