GreekChat.com Forums - Beautiful News!

April 2 — Ending a week of agony for one soldier’s family, U.S. forces in Iraq rescued a U.S. prisoner of war, U.S. Central Command said Wednesday morning. Military sources at the Pentagon told NBC News that the rescued soldier was Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, 19, of Palestine, W.Va., one of eight soldiers who vanished after their convoy was attacked south of Baghdad last month.

ARMY BRIG. GEN. Vincent Brooks, deputy director of operations at Central Command headquarters in Doha, Qatar, announced the rescue in a short briefing for reporters. He provided no details about the operation, but the Pentagon later confirmed Lynch’s identity.
Sources who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity said that Lynch was rescued overnight near An Nasiriyah, where U.S. forces have been involved in running skirmishes with Iraqi forces about 200 miles south of the capital.
Jean Offutt, a spokeswoman for Fort Bliss, Texas, where Lynch’s unit is based, said she did not know whether Lynch had been wounded or when she might return to the United States. CNN was reporting that Lynch suffered multiple gunshot wounds during the rescue and that her condition was said to be stable.
Relatives and friends said Lynch, a supply clerk who turns 20 later this month, joined the Army to get an education and follow her dream of becoming a teacher. Her older brother, Gregory, is a member of the National Guard.
“I got a phone call, and they told me, and I was tickled pink,” Lynch’s cousin Rita Lynch told MSNBC TV. “I was real worried. I didn’t think I would ever see her again.”
President Bush was told of the rescue during a briefing with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the White House, spokeswoman Suzy DeFrancis said. The president responded, “That’s great.”

NOTE: ‘SHE’S STILL ALIVE’
Lynch was one of 15 members of the Army’s 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, which was deployed near An Nasiriyah with the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, who were ambushed March 23 by Iraqi forces after taking a wrong turn.
The Army later listed two of the 15 as dead, five as prisoners of war and the eight others, including Lynch, as missing. The dead bodies of several soldiers were displayed on Iraqi television last week; Pentagon officials charged that they had been executed, which Iraq denied.

NBC’s Kerry Sanders, reporting from near An Nasiriyah, said U.S. officials were made aware that at least one female prisoner was being held at Saddam Hospital when a note was passed to a Marine on Tuesday morning. In handwriting that looked as though it was written by a female, the note said, in English: “She’s still alive. She’s in room [XXX].”
A resident of An Nasiriyah who spoke English approached Sanders on Tuesday and told him: “There’s a woman in the Saddam Hospital who’s an American soldier. Please make sure the people in charge know ...”
The information was developed while the Marines were in the area in search of Ali Hassan al-Majeed, a cousin whom President Saddam Hussein was believed to have put in charge of the southern front. Al-Majeed is known by the nickname “Chemical Ali” for overseeing the use of poison gas that killed 5,000 Kurdish villagers in 1988.
Military officials said they believed Lynch was held in the hospital for the entire time since she was captured March 23.

Lynch was rescued by special operations forces as Marines staged decoy attacks in An Nasiriyah, including assaults on the headquarters of the local Baath Party and the Fedayeen Saddam paramilitary organization, both of which were destroyed, military sources told Reuters.
Military officials told NBC News that at least one other American was found dead at the hospital. However, they would not say whether the dead American or Americans were among the soldiers whose bodies Iraqi television displayed last week or some of those still officially listed as missing.
The officials said they would not be able to clarify the reports until more analysis could be completed and families of all of the soldiers could be notified.

DISCOVERIES RAISE NEW FEARS
The rescue helped somewhat to allay fears for the safety of the prisoners and the missing soldiers, which had increased Friday when Marines found shredded remains of at least one female U.S. military uniform at a hospital in An Nasiriyah that had been used by Iraqi forces. The only known female POW is Spc. Shoshana Johnson, 30, also of Fort Bliss.
In another part of the hospital, Marines found a large battery next to a bed, leading them to suspect that it was used as a torture device, Sanders reported.

RED CROSS VISITS PRISONERS
Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday that it had started visiting Iraqi prisoners of war held by U.S.-led forces at a camp near the southern town of Umm Qasr. The Red Cross had not yet succeeded in gaining access to Americans held by Iraq.
Britain said on Monday, the 12th day of the war, that about 8,000 prisoners of war had been taken.
The Red Cross’ Middle East chief, Balthasar Staehelin, said at a news conference that a 15-member team, including a doctor and six interpreters, registered about 100 prisoners after talking with the camp commander for several hours and touring the facilities.

In keeping with Red Cross practice, Staehelin would not comment on the treatment of prisoners or conditions at the camp, which houses about 3,000 prisoners of war.
Staehelin said the visit would last “a number of days” and involve group interviews, individual interviews and medical evaluations, as well as attempts to re-establish contact between the POWs and their families.
The Bush administration reiterated its demand Sunday for Red Cross access to Americans held by Iraq.
“We would hope they [Iraq] would do the honorable thing, the right thing, and allow the International Committee of the Red Cross in to visit our POWs as they are required to do under the Geneva Conventions,” Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which both sides have signed, the Red Cross must be allowed to visit prisoners of war.

NBC’s Kerry Sanders in south-central Iraq, Jim Miklaszewski in Washington and David Shuster in Doha, Qatar; MSNBC.com’s Alex Johnson and Mike Brunker; The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

fact file
Geneva Convention on P.O.W.s

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About the conventionsArticle 13 -- Humane treatmentArticle 14 -- Respect and honor
The current Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war was adopted on August 12, 1949, at a conference in Geneva on the protection of war victims and entered into force on October 21, 1950.
A series of international treaties concluded in Geneva on ameliorating the effects of war on soldiers and civilians date back to 1864 and have been closely associated with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Click the dropdown menu above to read relevant sections of the convention.
"Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely
treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power
causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to physical mutilation or tomedical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the prisoners concerned and carried out in his interest.
Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.
Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited."
"Prisoners of war are entitled in all circumstances to respect for the persons and their honour. Women shall be treated with all the regard due to their sex and shall
in all cases benefit by treatment as favourable as that granted to men. Prisoners of war shall retain the full civil capacity which they enjoyed at the time of their capture, The Detaining Power may not restrict the exercise, either within or without its own territory, of the rights such capacity confers except in so far as the captivity requires."

Source: The Geneva Convention via Reuters
Printable version

http://www.msnbc.com/news/889604.asp