THE RESCUE of Private Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital was trumpeted by the U.S. media as a masterful Special Ops plan. An elite of team of U.S. commandos went behind enemy lines to a hospital in Nasiriya, we were told, and airlifted the badly wounded Lynch, who had been captured a couple weeks earlier when her maintenance convoy took a wrong turn.

However, the real story bears little resemblance to this Hollywood version, according to a report in the Times of London.

First, doctors at Al-Nasiriya general hospital said that the Special Ops mission met no resistance--having taken place a day after Iraqi forces fled the city. But that didn't stop U.S. soldiers from terrorizing patients and hospital staff.

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

"What the Americans say is like the story of Sinbad the Sailor--it's a myth," said Dr. Harith Al-Houssona, who saved Lynch's life when Iraqi forces brought her to the hospital. When Lynch regained consciousness, Harith assured her that she was safe and struck up a friendship of sorts.

When Iraqi intelligence officers ordered that Lynch be transferred to Baghdad, Harith told an ambulance driver to take her to one of the U.S. checkpoints on the outskirts of the city. But when the driver approached U.S. forces, they fired on him, and he was forced to turn back.

"There are two faces to Americans," Harith said. "One is freedom and democracy, and giving kids sweets. The other is killing and hating my people. I feel sad because I will never see Jessica again, and I feel happy because she is happy and has gone back to her life. If I could speak to her, I would say, 'Congratulations!'"

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