“Private Jessica Lynch became an icon of the war [in Iraq], and the story of her capture by the Iraqis and her rescue by US special forces became one of the great patriotic moments of the conflict. But her story is one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived. Private Lynch, a 19-year-old army clerk from Palestine, West Virginia, was captured when her company took a wrong turning just outside Nasiriya and was ambushed [on March 23, 2003]. Nine of her comrades were killed and Private Lynch was taken to the local hospital, which at the time was swarming with Fedayeen. Eight days later US special forces stormed the hospital, capturing the ‘dramatic’ events on a night vision camera. They were said to have come under fire from inside and outside the building, but they made it to Lynch and whisked her away by helicopter. Reports claimed that she had stab and bullet wounds and that she had been slapped about on her hospital bed and interrogated. But Iraqi doctors in Nasiriya say they provided the best treatment they could for the soldier in the midst of war. She was assigned the only specialist bed in the hospital and one of only two nurses on the floor. ‘I examined her, I saw she had a broken arm, a broken thigh and a dislocated ankle,’ said Dr Harith a-Houssona, who looked after her. ‘There was no [sign of] shooting, no bullet inside her body, no stab wound–only road traffic accident. They want to distort the picture. I don’t know why they think there is some benefit in saying she has a bullet injury.’ ”
– John Kampfner, “Saving Private Lynch Story ‘Flawed,'” BBC News, May 15, 2003