On April 15 the Washington Post reported from Nasiriyah, Iraq, that “accounts of the U.S. military’s dramatic rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch from Saddam Hospital two weeks ago 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.”
An Iraqi doctor told Post writer Keith Richburg that no Iraqi soldiers or militiamen were at the hospital that night, April 1, when U.S. troops came in helicopters to carry out the midnight rescue.
An April 2 front-page article in the Star Tribune from the New York Times had said Lynch was rescued “in a daring midnight mission . . . .
“[Brig. Gen. Vince] Brooks gave no further details. It was not clear whether the Special Operations forces had to fight to rescue Lynch.”
The next day a story from the Los Angeles Times said: “Then, under cover of darkness, Army Rangers, Navy SEALS and Marines . . . shot their way into the building under heavy fire.”
The day after the Washington Post story debunking initial reports of the rescue, the London Times repeated the same, also based on an interview with a hospital physician.
The allegation was dormant until May 16 when a British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) documentary charged the rescue was “staged.”
Except for the Washington Post story, the American press had only a word in passing about the allegations.
Star Tribune librarians found one Associated Press story on May 8 that indirectly referred to “differing versions of the rescue.”
The silence evaporated last week when Robert Scheer, a weekly contributor to the Los Angeles Times editorial pages, branded the rescue as “fictitious” and “one in a series of egregious lies marketed to us by the Bush administration.” He repeated many of the BBC charges.
Reprinted on the May 23 Star Tribune Commentary page, it brought a quick reader response:
James Wellik requested a correction “taking into account the large volume of convincing and repudiating reports focusing on the allegations that are the centerpoint of his piece.”
Gerry Nelson said, “This article should have been placed on the front page. If not this one, why not a similar article from one of the many reporters in Iraq, including your own.”
Paul Schersten wrote: “The main point is that there absolutely is no indication that the U.S. thought this was anything but a risky operation; that’s the main admission the BBC guy makes.”
Debra Morse-Kahn’s e-mail said: “Though the news about this rescue fabrication has continued to circulate widely on the Internet, it has failed to occupy any front page of the Star Tribune. Why the failure to follow through? Pressure on the editor from the publisher?”
The Star Tribune had requested from the AP a background article on the rescue, the charges and the U.S. military response. It was on Wednesday’s front page.
The AP writer interviewed 20 doctors, nurses and other personnel at the Nasiriyah hospital and concluded: “The assessment was the same: The dramatics that surrounded Lynch’s rescue were unnecessary.”
The fourth paragraph quoted a Pentagon spokesman, Marine Lt. Col. David Lapan: “We didn’t need to create any drama. It was there already.” A Reuters news service article in the May 24 Orlando Sentinel quoted Lapan that it was “ludicrous and insulting” for the BBC to suggest the rescue was staged and hyped.
Comment: The American press in Iraq defaulted on this story.
The time to interview the hospital personnel was when the BBC, the London Times and the Washington Post did. And the failure of the American press to jump on the Post story is equally embarrassing. It was available to the Star Tribune from the Post News Service.
The Scheer column was too opinionated to merit a news page location.
