Doctors who treated former prisoner of war dismiss claims that she was raped
in Iraq
SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI, Associated Press Writer
Friday, November 7, 2003
http://minilien.com/?ijbhxyYDUU
Iraqi doctors who treated former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch dismissed
claims made in her biography that she was raped by her Iraqi captors.
Although Lynch said she has no memory of the sexual assault, medical records
cited in "I am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story" indicate that she
was raped by her Iraqi captors, according to U.S. media who said they had
advance copies.
The book -- due to be released Tuesday -- covers Lynch's experience between
March 23 when her 507th Maintenance Company convoy was ambushed in Nasiriyah
and April 1 when she was evacuated from a hospital by U.S. commandos. It was
unclear if the book cites American or Iraqi records.
A family spokesman, Stephen Goodwin, confirmed the book alleges Lynch was
raped.
Lynch suffered broken bones to her right arm, right leg and thighs and ankle
and received a head injury when her Humvee utility vehicle was hit by a
rocket-propelled grenade and crashed into another vehicle. Eleven soldiers
were killed in the attack.
Dr. Mahdi Khafazji, an orthopedic surgeon at Nasiriyah's main hospital
performed surgery on Lynch to repair a fractured femur and said he found no
signs that she was raped or sodomized.
Khafazji, speaking at his private clinic in Nasiriyah on Friday, said he
examined her extensively and would have detected signs of sexual assault. He
said the examination turned up no trace of semen.
Dr. Khafazji said Lynch was taken first to the Military Hospital, a few
hundred yards from the ambush site at around 8 a.m., about an hour after the
attack. A few hours later, she was brought to his hospital.
"She was injured at about 7 in the morning," he said. "What kind of animal
would do it to a person suffering from multiple injuries?"
Dr. Jamal al-Saeidi, a brigadier general and head of the orthopedic
department at the now disbanded Military Hospital, remembers seeing
Jessica's motionless body on a bed in the crowded lobby of his hospital. He
said a police van parked outside appeared to have brought her to the
hospital.
"When she was brought there she was fighting for her life," said Dr.
al-Saeidi at his private clinic. "She was in shock because of the severity
of her injury."
He said Lynch was fully clothed with her field jacket buttoned up. "Her
clothes were not torn, buttons had not come off, her pants were zipped up,"
al-Saeidi said.
Al-Saeidi said he found no signs of rape during an examination although he
acknowledged he was not looking for signs of sexual assault.
Lynch had lost more than half of her blood because of a four- to six-inch
wound on the left side of her head, as well as broken limbs that caused
internal bleeding, al-Saeidi said.
"We had a few minutes, golden minutes to save her," he said. He rushed her
to the operating room, away from the crowded lobby, and gave her intravenous
fluid and blood and stitched her head wound.
Another U.S. soldier, Lori Piestewa, died half an hour after arriving at the
hospital with Lynch of severe head injuries, doctors said.
Half an hour after surgery on Lynch, al-Saeidi assured her that she was in
good hands.
He told her that she had to undergo surgery in a couple of days, but Lynch
said: "'No, I want to be in the States."'
Soon afterward, military intelligence officers came to the hospital to take
Lynch away. Dr. al-Saeidi told them if she did not get medical attention she
would die. They took her to the Saddam Hospital, where she stayed nine days
until Iraqi soldiers left the hospital.
Several hours later American commandos raided the hospital and evacuated
her.
"Why are they saying such things?" a bitter Dr. Khodheir al-Hazbar, the
hospital's deputy director, said. "We were good to her."
In an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, Lynch said she has no recollection
of a rape. "Even just the thinking about that, that's too painful," she
said.
Lynch told Sawyer she doesn't remember being slapped or mistreated at the
hospital, and she recalled one nurse sang to her.
She also accused the military of using her capture and dramatic nighttime
rescue to sway public support for the war in Iraq.
Video of U.S. commandos whisking Lynch to a waiting chopper helped cement
Lynch's image as a hero. But in the "Primetime" interview to be aired on
Tuesday, Lynch told Sawyer there was no reason for her rescue to be filmed.
"They used me as a way to symbolize all this stuff," Lynch said. "It's
wrong."
Lynch told Sawyer she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and
that her gun jammed during the chaos. "I'm not about to take credit for
something I didn't do," she said.
"I did not shoot, not a round, nothing. ... I went down praying to my knees.
And that's the last I remember."
©2003 Associated Press
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