BBC: US Military Version of Jessica Lynch's Rescue is "Flawed"

Private Jessica Lynch

This weblog first posted this story headlined "Rewinding the Real-Life Movie 'Rescue of Private Jessica Lynch in Nassariyah, Iraq"' based on Mitch Potter of Toronto Star's report (on 5 May 2003) in Nassariyah, Iraq.

On Sunday (18 May 2003) on BBC2, BBC Correspondent programme will relate a similar view on the segment called "War Spin" at 7.15 pm (London time).

It will be presented by John Kampfner and produced by Sandy Smith.

What BBC's John Kampfner discovered was that the story dished out by the US Military propaganda machine on the "Saving of Private Jessica Lynch" was another "modern American myth". .... It is short of calling it a "lie".

Does it matter if the drama was allowed to be played out and mythologised after the fact ? Yes it does - when it matters about life and death of soldiers and those involved. Yes it does - when the US media, and their embedded reporters with front line soldiers in this war, pride in themselves as custodians of media integrity and gatekeepers of facts.

This relevation of distortion of the truth increasingly plays to the perception of the US media being " in bed" with the US Military's war propaganda machine, feeding myths to the unknowing American public.

Judging from this episode on the Private Jessica Lynch's rescue, as well as the US media's reporting of most other aspects of the war, notoriously regarding the fall of Saddam Hussein's statue, one can only say US media reports and US Command briefings are to be taken with a great amount of salt - or else treated simply as a "joke." Their media value was being superceded only by that of the press briefings given by Saddam Hussein's Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, during the war.

The real story of the "Saving of Private Jessica Lynch" is this:

• Private Jessica Lynch was well cared for by the medical staff at the Nassariyah Hospital.
  
  
• The doctors tried to free her to the Americans.
  
  
• When the American commandos came, they knew her Iraqi guards had long fled and left the place.

Excerpts from report by John Kampfner in The Guardian UK:

Private Jessica Lynch rescued from the hospital by US commandos

Her rescue will go down as one of the most stunning pieces of news management yet conceived.

It provides a remarkable insight into the real influence of Hollywood producers on the Pentagon's media managers, and has produced a template from which America hopes to present its future wars.

The British military counterparts working alongside Doha, Qatar are infuriated by this American media tactics.The BBC's Correspondent programme reveals the inside story of the rescue that may not have been as heroic as portrayed, and of divisions at the heart of the allies' media operation.


"In reality we had two different styles of news media management," says Group Captain Al Lockwood, the British army spokesman at central command. "I feel fortunate to have been part of the UK one."

Jessica Lynch became an icon of the (Iraq ) war. The story of her capture by the Iraqis and her rescue by US special forces was ran by the American media as one of the great patriotic moments of the conflict.

In the early hours of April 2, correspondents in Doha were summoned from their beds to Centcom, the military and media nerve centre for the war. The journalists rushed in, thinking Saddam had been captured. The story they were told instead has entered American folklore.

The US Army's 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, in which Private Lynch, a 19-year-old clerk from West Virginia,was a member, took a wrong turning near Nassiriya and was ambushed. Nine of her US comrades were killed. Iraqi soldiers took Lynch to the local hospital, which was swarming with fedayeen, where she was held for eight days.

That much is uncontested. What followed next is something else:

After releasing its five-minute film to the networks, the Pentagon claimed that Lynch had stab and bullet wounds, and that she had been slapped about on her hospital bed and interrogated. It was only thanks to a courageous Iraqi lawyer, Mohammed Odeh al-Rehaief, that she was saved. According to the Pentagon, Al-Rehaief risked his life to alert the Americans that Lynch was being held.

Just after midnight, Army Rangers and Navy Seals stormed the Nassiriya hospital. Their "daring" assault on enemy territory was captured by the military's night-vision camera. They were said to have come under fire, but they made it to Lynch and whisked her away by helicopter.

That was the message beamed back to viewers within hours of the rescue.

Al-Rehaief was granted asylum barely two weeks after arriving in the US with a US $500,000 deal to write "Rescue in Nassiriya" to be published in October.

There is only one problem to whether the account in the to-be-written book can be verified: Her doctors are now saying she has NO recollection of the whole episode and probably never will. Her memory loss means that "researchers" have been called in to fill in the gaps.

International media now believes that is ONE story, but TWO versions. The American "Hollywood" version and the real version of the "Saving of Private Jessica Lynch".

The REAL version of the Rescue of the Private Jessica Lynch as reported by BBC's John Kampfner :

The Iraqi doctors in Nassiriya say they provided the best treatment they could for Lynch in the midst of war. She was assigned the only specialist bed in the hospital, and one of only two nurses on the floor. "I was like a mother to her and she was like a daughter,"says Khalida Shinah.

Dr. Harith al-Houssana

Dr Harith al-Houssona, who looked after her throughout her ordeal said:

"We gave her three bottles of blood, two of them from the medical staff because there was no blood at this time. I examined her, I saw she had a broken arm, a broken thigh and a dislocated ankle. Then I did another examination. There was no [sign of] shooting, no bullet inside her body, no stab wound - only RTA, road traffic accident."

"They want to distort the picture. I don't know why they think there is some benefit in saying she has a bullet injury."

The doctors told BBC reporters that the day before the special forces swooped on the hospital the Iraqi military had fled.

Hassam Hamoud, a waiter at a local restaurant, said he saw the American advance party land in the town. He said the team's Arabic interpreter asked him where the hospital was. "He asked: 'Are there any Fedayeen over there?' and I said, 'No'."

All the same, the next day "America's finest warriors" descended on the building.

Dr. Anmar Uday

Another doctor, Anmar Uday told BBC reporters:

"We heard the noise of helicopters. We were surprised. Why do this? There was no military, there were no soldiers in the hospital. " He says that they must have known there would be no resistance.

"It was like a Hollywood film. They cried, 'Go, go, go', with guns and blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show - an action movie like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan, with jumping and shouting, breaking down doors."

All the time with the camera rolling. The Americans took no chances, restraining doctors and a patient who was handcuffed to a bed frame.

There was one more twist.

Two days before the snatch squad arrived, Al-Houssona had arranged to deliver Jessica to the Americans in an ambulance .

"I told her I will try and help you escape to the American Army but I will do this very secretly because I could lose my life." Dr. al-Houssana said. He put her in an ambulance and instructed the driver to go to the American checkpoint. When he was approaching it, the Americans opened fire.

They fled just in time back to the hospital. The Americans had almost killed their prize catch.

Brig. General Vincent Brooks

A military cameraman had shot footage of the US commando-style rescue. It was a race against time for the video to be edited. The video presentation was ready a few hours after the first brief announcement.

When it was shown, General Vincent Brooks, the US spokesman in Doha, declared: "Some brave souls put their lives on the line to make this happen, loyal to a creed that they know that they'll never leave a fallen comrade."

NONE of the details that the doctors provided Correspondent with, made it to the video or to any subsequent explanations or clarifications by US authorities.

I (Kampfner) asked the Pentagon spokesman in Washington, Bryan Whitman, to release the full tape of the rescue, rather than its edited version, to clear up any discrepancies. He declined. Whitman would not talk about what kind of Iraqi resistance the American forces faced. Nor would he comment on the injuries Lynch actually sustained. "I understand there is some conflicting information out there and in due time the full story will be told, I'm sure," he told me.

Simon Wren, British Government spokesman at Doha, was furious that on the first few days of the war the Americans refused to give any information at Central Command. The British were put in the difficult position of having to fill in the gaps, off the record. Towards the end of the conflict, Wren wrote a confidential five-page letter to Alastair Campbell complaining that the American briefers weren't up to the job. He described the Lynch presentation as embarrassing.


Wren described the Lynch incident as "hugely overblown" and symptomatic of a bigger problem. He tried on several occasions to persuade Wilkinson and Brooks to change tack. In London, Alistair Campbell did the same with the White House, to no avail. Wren acknowledged that the events surrounding the Lynch "rescue" had become a matter of "conjecture". Wren had this to say on the complicity of the US media:

"The Americans never got out there and explained what was going on in the war. All they needed to be was open and honest. They were too vague, too scared of engaging with the media. The American media didn't put them under pressure so they were allowed to get away with it. They didn't feel they needed to change.

Either way, it was not the main news of the day. This was just one soldier, this was an add-on: human interest stuff. It completely overshadowed other events, things that were actually going on on the battlefield. It overshadowed the fact that the Americans found the bodies of her colleagues. What we wanted to give out was real-time news."

Group Captain Al Lockwood, the British army spokesman at central command told BBC Correspondent "Having lost the first skirmish, they (the Americans) had pretty much lost the war when it came to media support. My feelings (is that) they lost their initial part of the campaign and never got on the front foot again. The media adviser we had here [Wren] was an expert in his field. His counterpart on the US side [Wilkinson] was evasive and was not around as much as he should have been when it came to talking to the media."

The American strategy was to concentrate on the visuals and to get a broad message out. The key was to ensure the right television footage. The embedded reporters could do some of that.

The Pentagon had been influenced by Hollywood producers of reality TV and action movies, notably Black Hawk Down. Back in 2001, the man behind Black Hawk Down, Jerry Bruckheimer, had visited the Pentagon to pitch an idea. Bruckheimer and fellow producer Bertram van Munster, who masterminded the reality show Cops, suggested Profiles from the Front Line, a primetime television series following US forces in Afghanistan. Van Munster's aim was to get close and personal.

It was perfect reality TV, made with the active cooperation of Donald Rumsfeld and aired just before the Iraqi war. The Pentagon liked what it saw.That approached was taken on and developed on the field of battle in Iraq.

The Pentagon has none of the British misgivings about its media operation. It is convinced that what worked with Jessica Lynch and with other episodes of this war will work even better in the future.

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