Congressional investigators have discovered that at least one U.S. military official provided the media with details about Jessica Lynch’s heroic acts—a tale that was later proven to be untrue.
By Mark Hosenball
The Pentagon has always denied responsibility for creating the myth that PFC Jessica Lynch went down fighting. Even last week, while Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman conducted hearings about misinformation in the Lynch and Pat Tillman cases, military officials (requesting anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case) insisted they did not know how the tale of Lynch’s heroics first got into circulation. But congressional investigators have dug up evidence that a military official did in fact provide at least one newspaper with details of Lynch’s alleged exploits.
In an April 3, 2003 story, The Military Times, a specialist newspaper, quoted Navy Capt. Frank Thorp as saying Lynch waged quite a battle prior to her capture. At the time, Thorp was one of the U.S. military’s senior spokesmen in the Persian Gulf. Now a rear admiral, he serves today as a deputy to Dorrance Smith, the Pentagon’s public relations chief. (Smith was not head of public affairs at the time Lynch was captured.) “We do have very strong indications that Jessica Lynch was not captured very easily … Reports are that she fired her [M-16 rifle
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