"It's ludicrous. It's a tempest in a teapot. We would never mislead the public."
- Lieutenant-Colonel James Cassella, a spokesman for the Department of Defense
Pentagon denies 'misleading public' on Lynch rescue
Soldier's family told not to talk about mission
The curious story of Jessica Lynch is fast getting under the skin of officials at the U.S. Pentagon, where persistent questions about the dramatic rescue of the U.S. private in the first days of the Iraq war are met with growing irritation.
"We're really not feeding this beast anymore," Lieutenant-Colonel James Cassella, a spokesman for the Department of Defense, insisted yesterday as the issue was raised once again. "It's ludicrous. It's a tempest in a teapot. We would never mislead the public."
The questions won't go away, however, even confronting Pte. Lynch's father yesterday at a press conference, where he appeared to contradict the official Pentagon position.
Pte. Lynch's rescue always had all the makings of a Hollywood movie, from the moment U.S. authorities revealed she had been plucked from an Iraqi hospital in a daring nighttime manoeuvre by a special U.S. rescue team.
Earlier this month, a BBC report charged that the Pentagon exaggerated the entire event, which took on huge patriotic status for Americans and became a defining moment of the war. The story, which dominated front pages around the world, was dubbed by the BBC as "one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived."
Yesterday, The Associated Press seemed to reach a similar conclusion after one of its reporters returned to Nasiriya and interviewed staff at the hospital who had looked after Pte. Lynch, now 20. She spent eight days there recovering from various fractures, and according to the medical staff interviewed by The Associated Press was well looked after by hospital officials, who tried to get news of her whereabouts to U.S. troops.
Quoting some 20 Iraqi sources and eyewitnesses at the hospital, the giant U.S. news agency reported that Special Forces who rescued the Private did so with excessive force.
"The U.S. commandos refused a key and instead broke down doors and went in with guns drawn," says the article. "They carried away the prisoner in the dead of night with helicopter and armoured vehicle backup -- even though there was no Iraqi military presence and the hospital staff didn't resist."
A physician who was at the hospital when U.S. special forces stormed in told the agency, "If they had come to the door and asked for Jessica, we would have gladly handed her over to them," said Dr. Hazem Rikabi. "Why the show? They just wanted to prove they were heroes."
The article quoted other witnesses who said U.S. soldiers fired blanks at hospital staff after breaking down the hospital's main doors in search of Pte. Lynch, who was captured in an Iraqi ambush on March 23, three days after the start of the Iraq conflict.
Pentagon officials maintain that suggestions they somehow stage- managed the April 1 rescue are ridiculous, and seem annoyed by the dozens of reporters who have been calling the Pentagon to clarify the situation.
"We've been very forthcoming throughout. All of our official pronouncements have been matter-of-fact," said Lt. Col. Cassella.
Allegations that the rescue was not all it appeared first surfaced in foreign press reports, including the Toronto Star, but had little impact in the U.S., where Pte. Lynch had quickly been elevated to national celebrity status.
The controversy began to enter the American consciousness this month, however, after Britain's BBC aired a documentary on the rescue. BBC reporters said U.S. military personnel involved in the raid knew there were no Iraqi forces in sight, an assertion that is vehemently disputed by the U.S. Department of Defence.
"Nasiriya was a combat zone, and in any combat zone we are always going to ensure any mission with robust forces," said Lt. Col. Cassella.
Yesterday, at a news conference in Pte. Lynch's hometown of Palestine, W.Va., her father refused to answer questions about the circumstances surrounding her rescue.
"We're really not supposed to talk about that subject," said Greg Lynch, the young woman's father, who called the news conference to thank neighbours for building an extension to their rural home to accommodate his daughter, who is recovering from multiple fractures at a Washington hospital and is not able to climb stairs.
"It's still an ongoing investigation, and we can't talk about nothing like that," Mr. Lynch said.
At a later point, he noted, "Nobody has told us not to talk about it. Our main concern is to get Jessi in good health."
A spokesman for the Pentagon denied there was any investigation into the rescue.
So far, the Pentagon has stuck to the story that U.S. forces on the ground in Iraq first heard about Pte. Lynch from an Iraqi lawyer named Mohammed al-Rehaief, who spotted her in the Nasiriya hospital and risked his life to inform U.S. troops of her whereabouts. He and his family were recently granted asylum in the United States in recognition of his bravery.
Shortly after the rescue, the Pentagon said Pte. Lynch, who is suffering from a head wound, two broken legs, a broken arm, a broken foot and a broken ankle, had no recollection of her time at the hospital or of her rescue.
However, at the news conference in Palestine yesterday, her father told reporters: "Her memory is as good as it was when she was home. She can still remember everything."
He added that he had not asked her for details of her time in Iraq.
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