Posted on 12/30/2003 6:28:04 PM PST by saquin
NEW YORK - Graphic video footage of a badly injured Jessica Lynch and Lori Piestewa, who may have died shortly afterward, was taken by Iraqi state television following the ambush of the soldiers' Army convoy, NBC reported Tuesday night.
The video, aired on "NBC Nightly News," shows the two Army privates at the hospital where they were taken following the March 23 ambush of the 507th Maintenance Co.
The tape was never aired in Iraq, NBC reported.
Piestewa, her face swollen and bruised and her head loosely bandaged, is shown as someone positions her feet, and then her head, for the camera shot. Her lip is shown curling back in an apparent grimace.
Lynch, 20, of Palestine, W.Va., is also shown bandaged, her lip cut.
Neither appears awake or alert.
"I haven't watched it," Piestewa's mother, Percy Piestewa, said when contacted by The Associated Press. "I don't want to talk to any reporters right now."
Telephone messages left with two spokespeople for Lynch's family were not immediately returned.
Iraqi doctors have previously said the women were brought to a private clinic following the ambush, and that Piestewa, a 23-year-old mother of two from Tuba City, Ariz., died half an hour later of severe head injuries.
Lynch and four other soldiers were rescued by U.S. special forces April 1, but 11 of their colleagues died during and after the ambush in Nasiriyeh.
Piestewa was the first U.S. female service member to die in the war.
The identities of Lynch and Piestewa were verified for NBC by Spec. Shoshana Johnson, one of the rescued soldiers.
"It was a little shocking to see Lori, but it also gave me a little peace to know that they tried, they did their best for her," Johnson, 30, of El Paso, Texas, told the network. "I mean, it was obvious they tried to bandage her up and give her medical care."
NBC told the Army it had obtained the tape before airing it so the families of the soldiers could be told first, according to MSNBC.com.
Defense Department spokesman Jim Turner said Tuesday night officials were aware of the Iraqi video, but had not seen it and did not have details about what it contained.
The United States repeatedly bombed Iraqi TV studios after they aired interviews with American prisoners of war. But this tape survived because an employee at the state network kept it at home, NBC reported.
Exactly. They won't show vids or pics of the poor souls that had to jump from the twin towers, because it might stir up hatred against Muslims. But it's OK to show every image they can of wounded and injured soldiers to gin up hatred against Bush and the war.
About two weeks ago I watched news "special" in which some bimbo interviewed three wounded soldiers who were home and going through recovery for their wounds. It was a complete sob piece decrying the sacrifices these men made in Iraq (unstated was the "un-just war" implication).
This b***h even went so far as to ask one soldier, "do you hate president Bush?" Not only didn't she get the response she wanted, she got a rather incredulous look from this wounded Soldier, followed by a quick cut-away and the next question.
The reason the press is so mad about not being allowed to film the planes unloading flag-draped caskets at Andrews, is that they want to run them every night as part of their propaganda campaign against the President and war.
That won't stop us from showing them!
I used to think that the attacks on Chelsea made some on the right look bad. That's nothing compared to what went on with Lynch. No wonder why a lot of younger women are liberals if this is the kind of stuff many see in everyday life. Too bad it reflects bad on all of us.
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