Posted on: Friday, April 4, 2003
Iraqi's tip led to rescue of POW
By David J. Lynch
USA Today
MARINE COMBAT HEADQUARTERS, Iraq — The daring rescue that freed American POW Jessica Lynch on Tuesday originated with a tip from a genial Iraqi lawyer who couldn't stomach seeing a woman hit.
Army Pfc. Lynch, 19, was seized March 23 along with 14 other soldiers when their supply convoy took a wrong turn as it passed the southern Iraqi town of Nasiriyah.
A few days later, the lawyer — who prefers to go just by his first name of Mohammed for now — went to Saddam Hospital in Nasiriyah to see his wife, Iman, who is a nurse. Right away, he noticed an unusual number of security personnel ringing the building. As he passed a first-floor emergency ward, he looked through the window and saw an Iraqi paramilitary man give Lynch two open-handed slaps to the face.
"I saw them hit the female soldier, and my heart stopped," said Mohammed, 32, who does not want his full name disclosed for fear of retribution from the Iraqi paramilitary fighters. "I decided to go to the Americans and tell them the story."
On a battlefield where America's enemies look the same as America's friends, that was no small matter. Mohammed had to walk more than 6 miles out of Nasiriyah, along an open road in an area that Marines have nicknamed "Ambush Alley."
When he reached a checkpoint manned by Marines, with his hands raised in the air, he was greeted with a curt "What do you want?"
"Important information about woman soldier," he replied in the broken English he acquired during studies at Basra Law College.
That piqued the interest of a young Marine shouldering an M-16, who then ushered the Iraqi to see his superior officer.
With his wife's assistance, Mohammed was able to give Marines the hospital layout, including the vital fact that a helicopter could land atop the six-story building.
The Marines asked him to return to the hospital and bring back more details about its layout, security and Lynch's exact location.
Luckily, he also had a good friend who worked as a doctor at the hospital. With the doctor's help, he made two more trips to the hospital — once when U.S. bombs were raining on the area — and was able to produce five maps.
On one visit, he saw the body of an American killed in battle and a U.S. military uniform. But asked whether he had seen any other Americans alive, Mohammed replied, "Just Jessica. Only Jessica."
Seven soldiers from Lynch's outfit, the Army's 507th Maintenance Company, a noncombat unit from Fort Bliss, Texas, are missing. Five are others are prisoners of war. Two others were killed in the ambush.
When Lynch was rescued, U.S. special operations troops also recovered 11 bodies from the hospital. Nine of them were retrieved from a mass grave and two from the hospital morgue. Some of the bodies are thought to be American, and there were unconfirmed reports yesterday that some of them were from the 507th.
On his first visit, Mohammed slipped into Lynch's room after her captor had left. She was lying in bed, a blanket drawn up to her chin, he said. There was a bandage on her head. One arm was in a sling.
Mohammed said she had gunshot wounds to both legs. Lynch's father, Greg Lynch Sr. of Palestine, W.Va., said yesterday that military doctors told him she was not shot but had two broken legs.
"She think I doctor," Mohammed recalled. "I said, 'Good morning.' She said, 'Good morning, doctor.' I said, 'Don't worry,' and she smiled."
Saddam Fedayeen had moved into the hospital at the outset of the war. The regime's hard-line loyalists, many drawn from Iraqi prisons, alienated many people in Nasiriyah by shooting anyone who showed warmth toward the U.S. invasion. One woman, who waved to a U.S. helicopter as it passed overhead, was shot and killed. Mohammed said he saw her body dragged through the street.
The day after he approached the Marines, Iraqi security forces ransacked his home. Mohammed's wife and 6-year-old daughter took refuge in his father's house while he spent nights with the Marines.
"I never went back to my house," he said. "My friends told me they (the Fedayeen) went into my house and took my car."
Mohammed and his family arrived here at Marine headquarters by helicopter yesterday and became instant celebrities. Marines clustered about them, taking pictures and exchanging small talk. After showering in the Marines' rudimentary camp facilities, the family dressed in borrowed T-shirts, pullovers and slacks and ate a dinner of military-issue MREs.
Mohammed is headed to Umm Qasr, where his temporary refugee status means he and his family will be cared for. He doesn't know when he will be able to return to Nasiriyah.
He's a big fan of the Marines. From his pocket, he retrieves a unit patch given by the helicopter crew who brought him here. "I am very happy, I keep this," Mohammed said, fingering the patch that read: "We get you home."
