Second guessing the rescue of private Jessica

Nick Kristof has done some good reporting and bad opining (as usual) in his column in today's NYT on the subject of Pfc. Jessica Lynch and her dramatic rescue.

On the plus side, he appears to have done solid reporting on the ground in Nasiriya regarding what really happened with Jessica at the hospital.   While the Iraqi civilian doctors and hospital staff appear to have treated her with kindness and humanity, unidentified Iraqi military officers were apparently planning to kill her and try to blame her death on American atrocities.   He also confirmed that on March 28th, an unidentified American POW, in handcuffs, and only slightly injured, was executed by the Saddam Fedayeen.   (Interestingly, this last detail was mentioned briefly in his column and then fleshed out in Nick's "NY Times on the Web Forum".   Is a modified - and moderated - form of blogging coming to the NYT?)

On the negative side, he couldn't resist getting in a cheap dig at the Administration for hyping the "Rescuing Private Jessica" story for cheap PR:

My guess is that "Saving Private Lynch" was a complex tale vastly oversimplified by officials, partly because of genuine ambiguities and partly because they wanted a good story to build political support for the war — a repetition of the exaggerations over W.M.D. We weren't quite lied to, but facts were subordinated to politics, and truth was treated as an endlessly stretchable fabric.

The Iraqis misused our prisoners for their propaganda purposes, and it hurts to find out that some American officials were misusing Private Lynch the same way.

As I recall, and as a quick search of the archives confirms (though I am too cheap to pay for Lexis/Nexis), the original stories told about the capture and rescue were highly qualified by all official military spokesmen. For example, read this account of the capture from WaPo, published on April 3rd.   While the article is luridly titled "She Was Fighting to the Death", in the middle of the piece it includes this disclaimer:

Several officials cautioned that the precise sequence of events is still being determined, and that further information will emerge as Lynch is debriefed. Reports thus far are based on battlefield intelligence, they said, which comes from monitored communications and from Iraqi sources in Nasiriyah whose reliability has yet to be assessed. Pentagon officials said they had heard "rumors" of Lynch's heroics but had no confirmation.

So, was the military hyping her for PR?   You be the judge.

SImilarly, this account of the rescue, also from WaPo and printed on April 6th, describes the rescue in heroic terms, but does not appear to diverge in any substantive way from the tale Kristof relates.   Here is Kristof's version:

"I met the Americans at the hospital entrance," said Dr. Hussein Salih, adding that Mr. Abdulrazak then led the Americans to Private Lynch. The staff members all said that there was no resistance, and that they welcomed the Americans.

Here is Major General Renuart's version, as recounted in the WaPo piece:

Before midnight Tuesday, they put the plan in motion. Marine Task Force Charlie launched a diversionary attack elsewhere in Nasiriyah to draw Iraqi militiamen into a fight some distance from the hospital. Other Marines ferried the commandos by helicopter and vehicles to the hospital complex, U.S. military officials said, as Iraqi fighters fired from surrounding buildings.

When the Americans entered the building, they persuaded a doctor to take them upstairs to Lynch's room. There, they found the scared and badly injured soldier. She "seemed to be in a fair amount of pain," Renuart said.

An Army Ranger doctor examined her and prepared her for evacuation. The commandos strapped her to a stretcher. Then they whisked her down the stairwell, out the door and into a waiting helicopter.

While "Iraqi fighters firing from surrounding buildings" might make it sound like the rescuers were being attacked, it could also just be referring to the diversionary attack.   In any event, the official version goes on to stay that the some of the rescuers stayed behind at the hospital to locate and dig up the remains of dead American soldiers, which presumably they would not be able to do if they were under attack.

So is Kristof being fair in complaining that "some American officials were misusing Private Lynch" for propaganda purposes?   I don't think so.