Lynch Book Says She Was Raped
Thursday, November 6, 2003
(10:07 AM ET)
The Associated Press
Lynch, 20, was shipped to Kuwait in January with the 507th Maintenance Company. She was captured March 23 after her convoy was ambushed in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. She was rescued from an Iraqi hospital April 1 by U.S. forces.
ABC News' Diane Sawyer, and Pvt. Jessica Lynch, the American soldier who was injured and captured in an ambush in Iraq pose in this undated publicity photo. The hour-long report, "Private Jessica Lynch: An American Story," a special edition of "Primetime," airs Tuesday, November 11, 2003, on ABC. The November rating "sweeps" begin Thursday, Oct. 30, 2003, after a season opening that felt like a false start. ABC, CBS, NBC, the WB and UPN- five of the six biggest networks- have lost audience this season compared to 2002.
Image Credit: Ida Mae Astute -- AP Photo/ABC
NEW YORK -- AP
The authorized biography of former prisoner of war Pfc. Jessica Lynch reportedly says she was raped by her Iraqi captors.
``I am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story'' is being released by Knopf publishing Tuesday, which is Veterans Day. Reporter Rick Bragg, who wrote the book, tells Lynch's story. Medical records cited in the book indicate that she was raped, the Daily News of New York said. Officials have said she has no memory of her ordeal.
``Jessi lost three hours. She lost them in the snapping bones, in the crash of the Humvee, in the torment her enemies inflicted on her after she was pulled from it,'' writes Bragg, according to a report in Thursday's Daily News, which obtained a copy of the book.
``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,'' Bragg continues.
Separately, ABC's ``Good Morning America'' host Diane Sawyer confirmed Thursday on the air that the book says Lynch was raped.
``The book does indeed cite some intelligence reports that she was treated brutally and a medical record that says, in the book, that she was a victim of a sodomizing rape,'' Sawyer said.
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2003 © The Associated Press.
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Lynch Book Says She Was Raped . . .