By ALLISON BARKER
The Associated Press
Thursday, May 29, 2003

PALESTINE, W.Va. - American POW Pfc. Jessica Lynch's parents said Thursday they are not permitted to discuss details of their daughter's capture and rescue in Iraq.

Greg and Deadra Lynch also said they couldn't comment on media reports that dispute military information released on Lynch's April 1 rescue from an Iraqi hospital.

"It is still an ongoing investigation," Greg Lynch said during a news conference at the family's rural West Virginia home.

The Army supply clerk is being treated at a Washington, D.C., hospital for injuries suffered when her convoy was ambushed.

Some Iraqi hospital staffers said this month that the U.S. commandos who came to get Lynch refused a key and instead broke down doors and went in with guns drawn, and that they carried away the prisoner in the dead of night with helicopter and armored vehicle backup - even though there was no Iraqi military presence and the hospital staff didn't resist.

American military doctrine calls for using overwhelming force in such situations. "We don't want it to be a fair fight," Marine Lt. Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, told AP this week. "The fact that we didn't encounter heavy resistance in the hospital was a good thing."

Two Pentagon officials also cast doubt on the original Washington Post report of Lynch "fighting to the death." The officials said all evidence suggests that Lynch's truck crashed in the chaos of the ambush in the central Iraqi town of Nasiriyah. She suffered several bone fractures and was in no position to put up a fight, the officials said.

Military advocate Elaine Donnelly sees another political agenda behind the Post's apparent misinformation.

"I think someone in the Army – probably a woman – leaked the story to the Washington Post to spin it," she said. "If you plant the story first, it's almost impossible to turn."

Donnelly, who heads the Center for Military Readiness, is a longtime opponent of allowing women to serve in combat positions. Donnelly suspects "Pentagon feminists," who she says have actively pursued the advancement of women in the military beyond the dictates of common sense and at the cost of military effectiveness, are behind the unsubstantiated report of Lynch's valor and erroneous report of her injuries. She suspects the information given to the Post was part of an attempt to tip the long-simmering debate about women in combat in proponents' favor and possibly dampen the potential public outrage over any future reports of torture.

"The Big Show"

The Toronto Star reports the three Nasiriya doctors, two nurses, one hospital administrator and local residents also ridiculed the U.S. military for its clandestine, midnight raid of the hospital to rescue Lynch. They claim Iraqi soldiers and commanders left the hospital two days earlier.

"The night they left, a few of the senior medical staff tried to give Jessica back," said Houssona. "We carefully moved her out of intensive care and into an ambulance and began to drive to the Americans, who were just one kilometer away. But when the ambulance got within 300 meters, they began to shoot. There wasn't even a chance to tell them 'We have Jessica. Take her.'"

The next night, the sound of helicopters circling the hospital's upper floors drove staff into the windowless X-ray department, according to the physicians' account. As the rescue unfolded, the power was cut and the U.S. soldiers blasted through locked doors.

"We were pretty frightened," Dr. Anmar Uday told the paper. "Everyone expected the Americans to come that day because the city had fallen. But we didn't expect them to blast through the doors like a Hollywood movie."

"They made a big show," Gizzy told the Daily Mail. "It was just a drama. A big, dramatic show."

Gizzy and other doctors told the paper most of the Saddam's Fedayeen fighters and the entire Baath Party leadership had come to the hospital earlier in the day, changed into civilian clothes and fled barefoot.

"They brought their civilian wear with them," said Mokhdad Abd Hassan, pointing to green army uniforms piled on the lawn. "They all ran away, the same day."