Pfc. Jessica Lynch: Raped by her Iraqi captors

On the day of the announcement of the capture of Pfc. Jessica Lynch by Iraqis, I was the only member of the White House Press Corps to ask (then) Presidential Press Secretary Ari Fleischer a question about possible rape.

I asked why Commander in Chief George Bush allows women military and naval personnel into combat zones, when both of the two female U.S. prisoners of war during Desert Storm were gang-raped.

Mr. Fleischer was angry while answering. And he punished me. Ari refused during the next five daily White House news briefings to answer any of my questions.

Other than this, he was a pleasure to deal with. I am currently trying to reach the now extensively traveling and lecturing Fleischer – to offer him a chance to apologize!

On the far more serious side, there should be a major congressional investigation of the U.S. Army's public relations – and their 228-day cover-up of what really happened to Jessica Lynch.

Her authorized biography "I Am a Soldier, Too" reports Lynch's medical records indicate she was anally raped. "The records do not tell whether her captors assaulted her almost lifeless, broken body after she was lifted from the wreckage, or if they assaulted her and then broke her bones into splinters until she was almost dead," the New York Daily News quotes from the book.

Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness has pressed the Pentagon for such details to no avail.

"I'm kind of surprised that the news of rape is coming out so late. We should have learned about this sooner. I suspect Lynch was brutalized after hearing reports that her dog tags were found on the nightstand of one of Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen fighters," Donnelly said.

Donnelly has called on Commander in Chief Bush to give direction to the Pentagon on rolling back Clinton-era policies such as females serving in combat roles, gender quotas, co-ed basic training, the deployment of single mothers and pregnant servicewomen and "overly generous pregnancy policies that subsidize and therefore increase single parenthood."

WorldNetDaily has reported that the Washington Post, citing an unnamed Pentagon official, erroneously reported Lynch "sustained multiple gunshot wounds" and also was stabbed while she "fought fiercely and shot several enemy soldiers ... firing her weapon until she ran out of ammunition." The paper quoted this official as describing her as "fighting to the death."

Nearly two weeks after its initial report, the Post essentially retracted this story, this time quoting a physician at the Iraqi hospital in Nasiriyah as saying Lynch had sustained a head injury and arm and leg fractures, but "there were no bullets or shrapnel or anything like that."

In her book, Lynch sets the record straight, saying she never fired a shot because her M-16 jammed.

"I didn't kill nobody," she said.

Donnelly argues that once Lynch was captured, she became a public figure plastered all over TV sets around the world. She stresses that the issue of whether war crimes have been committed against U.S. soldiers carries policy implications.

"If the Pentagon puts a happy face on the situation and describes her injuries as only being broken bones, they're not being honest with the American public and with women recruits."

And that is why the Pentagon needs to be cleaned out of all feminist fanatics who have so desperately pushed to get women in combat. Commander in Chief Bush should order all women out of all combat zones.