Vadsige Amerikanen. Bah.

The rescue of Private Jessica Lynch, which inspired America during one of the most difficult periods of the war, was not the heroic Hollywood story told by the US military, but a staged operation that terrified patients and victimised the doctors who had struggled to save her life, according to Iraqi witnesses.

[…]

Four doctors and two patients, one of whom was paralysed and on an intravenous drip, were bound and handcuffed as American soldiers rampaged through the wards, searching for departed members of the Saddam regime.

An ambulance driver who tried to carry Private Lynch to the American forces close to the city was shot at by US troops the day before their mission. Far from winning hearts and minds, the US operation has angered and hurt doctors who risked their lives treating both Private Lynch and Iraqi victims of the war. ?What the Americans say is like the story of Sinbad the Sailor ? it?s a myth,? said Harith al-Houssona, who saved Private Lynch?s life after she was brought to the hospital by Iraqi military intelligence.

[…]

Dr Harith went outside the hospital during the bombing to get supplies of Private Lynch?s favourite drink, orange juice, and struggled to persuade her to eat.

?I told her she needed to eat to recover, and I brought her crackers, but her stomach was upset. She said as a joke: ?I want to be slim.?

?I see (many) patients, but she was special. She?s a very simple person, a soldier, not well-educated. But she was very, very nice, with a lovely face and blonde hair.?

The Iraqi intelligence officers told the hospital that Private Lynch would soon be transferred to Baghdad, a prospect that terrified her.

After her condition stabilised, they ordered Dr Harith to transfer Jessica to another hospital.

Instead he told the ambulance driver to deliver her to one of the American outposts that had already been established on the ouskirts of the city.

?But when he reached their checkpoint, the Americans fired at him,? he said.  [TimesOnline]