Dave Zweifel

Dave Zweifel: Jason Blair isn't the only deceiver

By Dave Zweifel
May 23, 2003

Reporter Jayson Blair's ability to deceive his editors at the New York Times is bad enough, but it pales in comparison to the U.S. military's apparent deception of the U.S. media last month.

If we are to believe an investigation by the British Broadcasting Corp., which as far as I know has no axes to grind in any of this, the entire "heroic" rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch was nothing more than outright military propaganda.

I personally started to wonder about the Lynch rescue shortly after we ran a Washington Post story on the front page of our April 3 editions that reported Lynch was fighting to the death when she and the rest of her unit were captured by the Iraqi military. The story, which was based on unnamed military sources, said that the West Virginia soldier "continued firing at the Iraqis even after she sustained multiple gunshot wounds" and that she was even stabbed when the Iraqis closed in.

It was a story that described uncommon heroism and I ordered it to appear on Page 1 as did dozens of other editors across the country. Stories that moved on the wire in ensuing days, however, appeared to contradict the Post's story. Doctors who examined Lynch after she got back to our hospitals reported that she was not shot or stabbed, but her injuries were incurred when the truck she was in overturned.

That, however, was only part of the strange and conflicting "facts" associated with the story. None of it, by the way, diminishes the trauma and military dedication on the part of Lynch. It now appears, though, that she may have been exploited by the Defense Department's public information folks.

Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer, who has seen the BBC account, reported "her story is one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived."

"Sadly," Scheer said, "almost nothing fed to reporters about either Lynch's original capture by Iraqi forces or her 'rescue' by U.S. forces turns out to be true."

The American media were told, and they dutifully reported, that Lynch was saved by Special Forces that stormed the Iraqi hospital where she was being held and, in the face of heavy hostile fire, managed to scoop her up and helicopter her out.

But according to the BBC, the truth appears to be that not only had Iraqi forces abandoned the area before the rescue, but the hospital's staff had informed U.S. forces of this and made arrangements two days before the raid to turn Lynch over to the Americans.

"But as the ambulance, with Pvt. Lynch inside, approached the checkpoint, American troops opened fire, forcing it to flee back to the hospital. The Americans had almost killed their prize catch," the BBC reported, according to Scheer.

"We were surprised," Dr. Anmar Uday told the BBC. "There was no military, there were no soldiers in the hospital. It was like a Hollywood film. The U.S. forces 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."

The network added that footage from the raid was shot not by journalists, but by soldiers with night-vision cameras, which was fed in real time to the central command in Qatar and was edited by the Pentagon and released as proof that a battle to free Lynch had occurred when it had not.

Published: 6:40 AM 5/23/03