“It was a classic joint operation, done by some of our nation’s finest warriors, who are dedicated to never leaving a comrade behind.” U.S. Brig.-Gen. Vincent Brooks, on the April 1 rescue of captured U.S. Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch from Saddam Hospital, Nasiriya, Iraq.
The liberation of Pfc. Lynch, 19, has been quite a news story, loaded with drama, intrigue, and dollops of hype.
Revelations (and an embarrassing stumble by the Star, which we’ll get to later) abound.
Indeed, more revelations may come forth, especially if Lynch, an army supply clerk, recovers lost memories of her traumatic adventure in Iraq.
But maybe not. Her doctor says she’s unlikely to remember what happened. Her father says the family is no longer allowed to comment because of an “ongoing” investigation.
Some good journalists have worked hard for weeks on the story, trying to separate fact from fiction.
Because of their doggedness, it’s already clear the early U.S. military accounts of the rescue were heavy on inspirational, Hollywood-style elements, lighter on salient details.
In one particularly florid account, published April 3 in the Star, the Los Angeles Times called the rescue “a triumphant moment for U.S. forces” who “landed a Black Hawk helicopter in the hospital courtyard, shot their way into the building and moved to Lynch’s room” where she lay wounded.
“There was not a firefight inside of the building, I will tell you, but there were firefights outside of the building, getting in and getting out,” Brig.-Gen. Vincent Brooks, deputy operations director, U.S. Central Command, Doha, Qatar, was quoted as saying.
Another news account in the April 3 Star, from the Houston Chronicle, said Lynch had “two broken legs, a broken arm and possibly multiple gunshot wounds.” It also said the rescue had been captured on defence department videotape.
There were also reports that Lynch had fought off her Iraqi captors before the rescue, that an Iraqi officer had slapped her and that she was badly cared for.
Early on, editors at the Star showed restraint, if not skepticism, when they decided not to publish a pinup-type photo of Lynch, in civvies, that was readily available.
Two weeks after the rescue, on April 15, the Washington Post published an 1,100-word dispatch by correspondent Keith B. Richburg, who had interviewed Iraqi doctors at Saddam Hospital in Nasiriya.
Summing up what they told him, Richburg wrote that early news coverage of the rescue “read like the stuff of a Hollywood script. For Iraqi doctors working in the hospital that night, it was exactly that Hollywood dazzle, with little need for real action.”
Dr. Haitham Gizzy, a doctor who had treated Lynch, called it “a big, dramatic show” because Iraqi soldiers and militia at the hospital had decamped earlier in the day, leaving their green army uniforms behind in piles on the lawn.
“Even the governor and the director general of the Baath Party . . . They left walking, barefoot, in civilian wear,” Gizzy told the Post.
Next day, the Times of London ran another 1,100-word dispatch on the rescue, by Richard Lloyd Parry, who also had visited Saddam Hospital.
Parry called the rescue “a staged operation that terrified patients and victimized the doctors who had struggled to save her life.”
The Times reporter quoted Dr. Harith Houssona, “who saved Private Lynch’s life” after Iraqi military intelligence brought her to the hospital, as saying: “What the Americans say is like the story of Sinbad the Sailor it’s a myth.”
The hyperbolic rescue story unravelled further when The Star’s Middle East correspondent, Mitch Potter, filed by far the most comprehensive piece the ombud has seen.
Headlined “The real `Saving Pte. Lynch’,” the nearly 2,000-word article ran May 4, on Page A1.
“All Hollywood could ever hope to have in a movie was there in this extraordinary feat of rescue except, perhaps, the truth,” Potter wrote after spending a week in Nasiriya, interviewing doctors (including Houssona), nurses, hospital administrators and local residents.
Potter’s story included statements by a Pentagon spokesperson who, having previously declined to release unedited military video of the rescue, said the public affairs office had no video footage other than what it had shown.
Unlike the early accounts, Potter’s story, including indications that Lynch had received sound medical treatment for non-battle-related injuries, seemed to awaken U.S. media interest.
On May 9, CNN anchor Aaron Brown chatted with Potter on-air, praising the correspondent for “a terrific job of reporting.”
Potter said he decided to visit the hospital because “there were so many stories swirling around the media tent” in Iraq and “I just felt like I needed to try and drill down a little deeper.”
An Associated Press story the same day noted that the official U.S. version was contradicted by “several news media” reports, including statements by Iraqi “doctors who said they had tried earlier to take Lynch to American forces but were fired on as they approached.”
Then, on May 17, the Star published a wire story by Don Melvin of Cox News Service, that further undercut the uplifting rescue story, relating details of a new BBC documentary.
According to Melvin, the BBC had concluded the “so-called daring rescue was essentially a Hollywood-style stunt designed to buck up sagging American support when the troops appeared to be getting down.”
It was here the Star stumbled.
Material inserted into Melvin’s story at One Yonge St. made it appear as if the Star had been the first to report on weaknesses in the official U.S. accounts. In particular, it said, inaccurately, Potter’s expos “was later reported by the Times of London and the Washington Post.”
As you’ve already read, the Post and Times of London broke ground on the elusive story, even though their work was mostly ignored in U.S. media until Potter’s detailed account got noticed.
Foreign editor Bill Schiller said he takes “full responsibility for the error.”
Good.
I think it’s important to set the record straight, for the sake of readers and all those who have tried to lift the fog of war from the Jessica Lynch story.
