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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