[KayEyeDoubleDee]

...

Witnesses told us that the special forces knew that the Iraqi military had fled a day before they swooped on the hospital.

...

It was like a Hollywood film. They cried 'go, go, go', with guns and blanks without bullets, blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show for the American attack on the hospital - action movies like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan."

...

There was one more twist. Two days before the snatch squad arrived, Harith had arranged to deliver Jessica to the Americans in an ambulance.

But as the ambulance, with Private Lynch inside, approached a checkpoint American troops opened fire, forcing it to flee back to the hospital. The Americans had almost killed their prize catch

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

Hey, don't shoot the messenger!

[Bismark]

Let me see if I understand this... Iraqis are telling the BBC this story, and they don't include an American response to the story?

I remember that during the war the British Navy stopped showing the BBC because their coverage was so pro-Iraq and anti-coalition. It seems that they will never change.

[DonQ]

As the straight facts of Lynch's rescue become known, some articles seem to have the tone of blaming Jessica Lynch herself ... for hyping the story of her capture, for hyping the story of her rescue, for not telling her own story, etc.

I honestly believe that Jessica Lynch cannot remember the details of her capture. She apparently was wounded fairly early in event and I can hardly imagine the trauma for her, considering she wasn't even supposed to see combat. As for the rest of it, we got the story of her Alamo-like resistance to capture from other people, while Lynch herself was still MIA. And we got the story of the D-Day-like rescue from other people, while she was still semi-conscious and not talking about her experiences to anyone. Any exaggeration is not her fault at all.

It's enough that she was shot by the enemy, saw her comrades killed, was apparently tortured (for no particular reason) and kept a prisoner (with medical attention far inferior to what Americans are used to).

[caisson71]

And we are to belive this "truth" from an Iraqi with no corroborating evidence? What do they think I am? Do they believe we are all NY Times journalists/readers? I don't recall any great welcoming party at the hospital.

[Cicero]

I'm not sure why they are running this story now. Your date is correct--I just checked it. But this story is identical with other stories that were run a week or two ago. Seemingly BBC--which is notorious for its pro-Arab slant--wants to keep it alive. We've been through all this before.

In the first place, the hospital staff witnesses may not be reliable.

In the second place, even if they treated her well, that doesn't say that her captors or visitors treated her well.

In the third place, at the time they say they tried to deliver her in an ambulance and were turned back at a roadblock, suicide bombings at roadblocks were at their height. And Arab fanatics have been known to use ambulances for suicide bombings.

And so on, and so on. It's a carping, whining, childish, nya-nya-I-told-you-so kind of story. It doesn't amount to a hill of beans.

[Joee]

I just wonder if this isn't some kind of a "set-up" to qualify her for a special decoration. The rules should apply for all in such awards, not to detract from what she has done and been exposed to, but to keep things in prospective.

[Lancey Howard]

But doctors now say she has no recollection of the whole episode and probably never will.

Funny how this last line puts the lie to the whole story. I'm surprised the writer left it in there. Nobody suffers traumatic, permanent amnesia from a "road accident".

[The Wizard]

Col. Hunt On F&F blew this away this morning

[weegee]

The media never questioned Hillary's story that she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary for climbing Mt. Everest. The media never questioned Bill Clinton's tale that racists were burning churches in Arkansas while he was a wee lad. I could go on ("Evurything that is AUP should be DAOWN an' evurything that is DAOWN SHOULD BE AUP!") but that would be exposing media bias which we have been time and time again by Big Media just does not exist.

[milemark]

I missed The O'Reilly Factor last night, but I heard that an officer of the U.S. army was going to be on to share his opinions and some new info regarding the Iraqi doctor's claims that rescuing PFC Lynch wasn't necessary. He says that the ambulance driver's who were "returning" Pfc. Lynch were never shot at, and that in fact when they reached an army checkpoint, they did not have her, but offered to sell the info on her location for $10,000 in U.S. currency and were sent away empty handed because they were already in the final stages of planning the rescue.
Also: The Media Reseach Center has a good peice online about a similar ABC News hatchet job on the Lynch rescue called: "They Saved Jessica Lynch but they ruined all the doorknobs" at : http://mediaresearch.org/realitycheck/2003/fax20030508.asp