|
|
printable version
- email this article
- view hidden posts
Saving Private Lynch Pt2. What Really Happened.
by SPIN FREE
Tuesday, Apr. 15, 2003 at 4:23 PM
"We agreed to stay in one room, not to intervene," Hassan said. The soldiers broke down several doors in the hospital before locating Lynch, and then went to the back of the hospital to recover the remains of nine U.S. soldiers buried in shallow graves. Eight of them, from Lynch's unit, were killed in the same ambush.
washingtonpost.com
Iraqis Say Lynch Raid Faced No Resistance
By Keith B. Richburg Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, April 15, 2003; Page A17
NASIRIYAH, Iraq, April 14 -- Accounts of the U.S. military's dramatic rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch from Saddam Hospital here 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.
"They made a big show," said Haitham Gizzy, a physician at the public hospital here who treated Lynch for her injuries. "It was just a drama," he said. "A big, dramatic show."
Gizzy and other doctors said no Iraqi soldiers or militiamen were at the hospital that night, April 1, when the U.S. Special Operations forces came in helicopters to carry out the midnight rescue. Most of the Saddam's Fedayeen fighters, and the entire Baath Party leadership, including the governor of the province, had come to the hospital earlier in the day, changed into civilian clothes and fled, the doctors said.
"They brought their civilian wear with them," said Mokhdad Abd Hassan, who was on duty that day and evening. He pointed to green army uniforms still piled on the lawn. "You can see their military suits," he said. "They all ran away, the same day."
"It was all the leadership," Gizzy said. "Even the governor and the director general of the Baath Party. . . . They left walking, barefoot, in civilian wear."
The disappearance of the Iraqi forces from Nasiriyah -- a crossroads town 200 miles south of Baghdad that was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting and heaviest U.S. casualties in the war -- in many ways mirrored the evaporation of the militia and Baath Party fighters elsewhere in Iraq. From the southern city of Basra, where British troops walked in almost unopposed after a 21/2-week standoff, to the capital, Baghdad, where President Saddam Hussein and his ruling circle vanished without a trace, Iraqi resistance to the U.S.-led invasion appears to have followed a well-set and planned pattern: Fight to a point, then disappear.
In Nasiriyah, "it look like an organized manner" of retreat, Gizzy said. The governor arrived in his dark four-wheel-drive Land Cruiser, which he left parked in the hospital driveway as he escaped on foot.
The car remains in the driveway , minus its four wheels that a religious group removed to prevent a rival political faction from stealing it. The fleeing Iraqi government hierarchy left behind seven other new and expensive cars, but the doctors said they set fire to them to eliminate the temptation for looters to scale the hospital walls.
U.S. troops have been posted at the hospital to secure it against looters. But at the time U.S. commandos came to rescue Lynch, Gizzy said, "there were no soldiers at our hospital, just the medical staff. There were just us doctors."
Lynch, 19, a supply clerk with the Army's 507th Maintenance Company, was captured March 23 when her unit made a wrong turn near Nasiriyah and was ambushed. Initial accounts reported how she was shot and stabbed and continued battling Iraqi fighters until she ran out of ammunition. But the doctors here who treated her said she suffered fractures to her arms and lower limbs and a "small skull wound," sustained when her vehicle overturned.
Lynch's U.S. doctors have said she suffered fractures in her upper right arm, upper left leg, lower left leg and right ankle and foot. Her father, Greg Lynch Sr., told reporters she had no penetration wounds.
"It was a road traffic accident," Gizzy said. "There was not a drop of blood. . . . There were no bullets or shrapnel or anything like that." At the hospital, he said, "She was given special care, more than the Iraqi patients."
The physician said Lynch was first treated at an Iraqi military hospital before being transferred to the Saddam public hospital. An intelligence agent was posted in the hallway to guard the prisoner of war's first-floor hospital room. An Iraqi man whose wife worked at the hospital noticed the guard, discovered Lynch was the patient and alerted U.S. military personnel. He was sent back to gather more information, and the rescue was carried out April 1.
Hassan and other doctors said they were on duty that evening, when "we heard a big thumping nearby the hospital. And the sound of helicopters -- not just one. Then someone from the hospital, a colleague, said soldiers were entering the hospital from the back door."
"We agreed to stay in one room, not to intervene," Hassan said. The soldiers broke down several doors in the hospital before locating Lynch, and then went to the back of the hospital to recover the remains of nine U.S. soldiers buried in shallow graves. Eight of them, from Lynch's unit, were killed in the same ambush.
"They took Jessica and recovered the cadavers from behind the hospital," Hassan said. He said he believed the U.S. troops were on the hospital grounds for almost three hours.
The doctors at Nasiriyah's public hospital said they welcomed the U.S. and British invasion for having toppled Hussein's government. But that support is tempered by the high number of civilian casualties in Nasiriyah. Many of them, including women and children, remain in the crowded wards, suffering from severed limbs and deep lacerations the doctors said were caused by U.S. tank fire and bombs during the first week of the war.
Doctors said they have no exact documentation, but estimated that 300 civilians were killed in Nasiriyah and 1,000 people were wounded. They said most of the patients were discharged from the 400-bed hospital, but 60 remained on the hospital's third floor.
"I was shot by the Americans," said Akeel Kadhim, 20, a student whose left leg was amputated. "I was running to another wounded person, trying to save him. . . . We are innocent. We were not fighting. We were not resisting. I tried to save an innocent person. Why did they shoot me?"
In the next bed, Hassan Aoda, 28, said he was riding on a bus with 28 other Iraqis when a U.S. armored vehicle opened fire on them at a road crossing on March 25. "I don't know why they shot at us," he said, lying on his back and nursing a fractured left shoulder and arm. "I'm an innocent person. I wasn't fighting the Americans."
He added, "I'm not angry. I'm angry at Saddam Hussein."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
|
Local News
Dedication of Transgender Memorial Ends Years of Struggle / Photos
N25 1:23AM
Atenco PRESENTE!! en California
N22 7:50PM
Thirteen new photos from inside occupied Carter-Huggins Hall (UCLA/Campbell Hall)
N22 3:43PM
A few pictures from inside occupied Campbell-Huggins Hall
N22 1:39PM
Report Back From Inside the Occupation of Campbell Hall, UCLA
N21 3:29PM
Dedication of Transgender Memorial Ends Years of Struggle
N21 2:48PM
PFP Gubernatorial Candidate Alexander Condemns UC Tuition Hikes
N21 5:56AM
UC Strike - UCLA Nov.19th
N21 3:34AM
Anti-war protests expected next week
N20 4:16PM
Campbell Hall de-occupied last night at 6pm
N20 12:21PM
UC Police break up UCLA protest
N20 12:18PM
Students and Workers Resist Privatization at UCLA Regents Meeting
N20 10:47AM
VIDEO: Students Pepper Sprayed at UCLA protest
N20 8:09AM
UC Students Fight Tuition Hike, Occupy Campus
N19 1:58PM
STOP STUPAK Rally
N19 12:56PM
Eye-witness report back of UCLA protests
N19 10:43AM
Students occupy Campbell Hall at UCLA
N19 3:07AM
SIgnage from UCLA Protest
N18 10:09PM
MP3 AUDIO – Interview with UCLA Student on Protesting the Regents
N18 9:42PM
KPFK's LSB meeting to attend and be part of the vocal community too
N18 12:48PM
BREAKING: Protests on UCLA Campus at Regent Meeting, Reports of arrests
N18 10:31AM
LA Eastside: Street Food Vendor Situation
N18 9:56AM
Transgender Memorial Dedication - Nov. 20
N18 9:37AM
Southern California: First Cop on Trial for Murder in History of State Is Headed Your Way
N18 8:48AM
The war on public-sector unions
N17 5:02PM
Horowitz's hate speech at USC
N17 4:30PM
UCLA CRISIS FEST: Protest for education
N17 6:14AM
Checkpoints this weekend / Retenes este fin de semana (12-14/Nov)
N12 12:33PM
More Local News...
Other/Breaking News
~ PLEASE~ JUST SAY NO 2 HOLIDAY SHOPPING IN THE TOWN OF SANATA MONICA CA FOR PETES SAKES~
N25 4:44PM
MASAKER NG 57 TAO SA MAGUINDANAO, PATUNAY NG BUHAY ANG WARLORDISMO
N25 4:22PM
New Study Shows Ten States Face Fiscal Crisis
N25 1:19PM
THERE IS A DECEPTION FLAVOR WITH FOREIGN POLICY OF OBAMA ...
N25 9:54AM
Youth Organize Worldwide Human Rights Walk
N25 7:15AM
Obama has aged 15 years since he took office
N25 2:09AM
AYpearl.com explain Necklace pendant and clothes matching
N24 10:44PM
Jeff Stone Riverside County Corruption Probe
N24 9:11PM
Discussion with Jonathan Pershing (#2 U.S. climate negotiator)
N24 5:59PM
AF3IRM/GABNET STATEMENT ON THE MAGUINDANAO MASSACRE:
N24 2:02PM
Democraticamente. Fernando Lugo, el impeachment y la proyección del golpismo
N24 12:53PM
Submarines sunk
N24 3:09AM
BRAZIL AND IRAN IN THE PRESS
N24 3:07AM
Submarines sunk.
N24 2:59AM
Googlemap of Student Occupations
N23 9:22PM
Health Bill Ignores Industrial Health Harms
N23 9:15PM
Injunction Hearing Set in WBAI Election Suit
N23 7:37PM
The End of Poverty? in theatres and FREE TICKETS
N23 6:29PM
Two Anniversaries: Berlin and Seattle
N23 6:07PM
The Neolbieral Restructuring of California State Government
N23 5:58PM
AF3IRM/GABNet/Mariposa Alliance Statement: 16 DAYS OF RAGE; 365 OF ACTIVISM
N23 5:42PM
Dahr Jamail Celebrates U.S. Military’s “Will to Resist” in Iraq, Afghanistan
N23 5:41PM
Queer Democrats Endorse Saldaña, Take No Position on County Term Limits
N23 5:29PM
Steve Hadley: Council Candidate's Odyssey from Pulpit to Politics
N23 5:08PM
AJLPP CONDEMNS MAGUINDANAO MASSACRE
N23 3:35PM
Solidarity with the UC Student Protests; Education is our right!
N23 1:50PM
Targeting Muslim Charities in America
N23 12:58PM
CUBANUESTRA. LA KAKISTOCRACIA DE FERNANDO LUGO
N23 10:53AM
More Breaking News...
|