That's true, but the war was just about over when that happened.
Well, "just about over" in a one month war is a relative term :-), the U.S. forces were already at the door step of the town - close enough for the good lawyer to walk to and forth to help the U.S. forces setup the rescue effort.
There are obviously a lot of confusion and details that hasn't been made public - yet (you would think we would KNOW whether she was or wasn't shot after we have already rescued her, yet even that piece of data changed several times in the reporting following her rescue). I think there is likely room for all parties to be "right" about their particular side of the event:
The lawyer who saw the beating and the presence of Iraqi military at the hospital and walked the (what was it? 12 miles? 16 miles?) distance, round trip, twice, to get in touch with the U.S. military and set the rescue effort in motion.
But how long would it take someone to walk 12 to 16 miles in a deser combat zone? A good half day or more? Were there other time lags between the alwyer's last visit to the hosptial and when he started off to get in contact with the U.S. forces the second time? It's possible that by the time the U.S. forces got the lawyer's "latest" information, draw up the plan for the rescue, and actually carried out the rescue, things at the hosptial could have changed quite a bit - the Iraqi military and Fedayeens having abandoned the place in the face of advancing U.S. forces, the doctors and nurses left on their own may have even actually tried to return pfc Lynch on their own.
At the same time, the U.S. military has no "real time" knowledge of what, if anything, has changed at the hospital, so they go in with full might of the force they can bring to bear to neuturalize the hospital and rescue the POW.
So, it's possible that everybody was right.