11 Bodies Found With Rescued U.S. POW
==From Yahoo News ==== 29 minutes ago====
By DOUG MELLGREN, Associated Press Writer
NASIRIYAH, Iraq - Eleven bodies — some of them believed to be Americans — were found with prisoner of war Pfc. Jessica Lynch when she was rescued in a U.S. commando raid on an Iraqi hospital, a military spokesman said Wednesday.
Lynch, a 19-year-old Army supply clerk, was captured by the Iraqis more than a week ago after her maintenance unit made a wrong turn and was ambushed in Nasiriyah. Twelve other members of her unit were also feared captured; five of them are officially listed as POWs.
Acting on an intelligence tip about Lynch's whereabouts, U.S. special operations forces slipped behind enemy lines and seized Lynch from the Saddam Hospital under cover of darkness Tuesday, military officials said.
The U.S. forces engaged in a firefight on the way into and out of the building, but there were no coalition casualties, said Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, a U.S. Central Command spokesman. He said ammunition, mortars, maps and a terrain model were found at the hospital, along with "other things that made it very clear it was being used as a military command post."
During the rescue operation, 11 bodies were recovered in and around the hospital. The cause of death was not immediately disclosed.
"We have reason to believe some of them were Americans," said Navy Capt. Frank Thorp, another U.S. Central Command spokesman.
He said the military has not confirmed whether they were members of Lynch's unit, the 507th Maintenance Company. "We don't yet know the identity of those people," Thorp said. "And forensics will determine that."
Two of the bodies were in a morgue in the hospital, while the nine others were in a grave area in the community, Brooks said. He said U.S. forces were led to the gravesite by someone who had been taken into custody.
Lynch was being treated for her injuries at an American military facility Wednesday. The nature of her injuries was not disclosed, and Brooks would not comment on her condition. But in a green-tinted, night-vision video taken of the rescue operation and shown to reporters Wednesday, she was put aboard a Black Hawk helicopter on a stretcher.
Until Tuesday, Lynch had been listed as missing in action, and her family did not know whether she was dead or alive.
"You would not believe the joys, cries, bawling, hugging, screaming, carrying on," Lynch's cousin Pam Nicolais said after the rescue. "You just have to be here."
The rescue operation included Air Force pilots, Marines, Navy SEALS, Army Rangers — "loyal to the creed they know that they never leave a fallen comrade," Brooks said.
Thorp would not confirm reports that troops used a battlefield diversion to slip into the hospital.
The 507th was attacked March 23 during some of the earliest fighting in Nasiriyah, where Fedayeen loyalists and other hardcore Iraqi fighters are said to have dressed as civilians and ambushed Americans.
Not long after the ambush, five of Lynch's comrades showed up in a video shown on Iraqi television being asked questions by their captors.
The video also showed bodies, apparently of U.S. soldiers, leading Pentagon officials to accuse Iraq of executing some of its POWs. Officials believe the video was made in the Nasiriyah area.
Lynch, an aspiring teacher from Palestine, W.Va., joined the Army to get an education, her family said. She left a farming community with an unemployment rate of 15 percent, one of the highest levels in West Virginia.
She was following in the footsteps of her older brother Gregory, a National Guardsman based at Fort Bragg, N.C. Jessica Lynch enlisted through the Army's delayed-entry program before graduating from high school.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., called the rescue a miracle.
"God watched over Jessica and her family," Rockefeller said through a spokesman in Washington. "All of West Virginia is rejoicing. This is an amazing tribute to the skill and courage of our military."
Early Wednesday, Marines seized the hospital under light sniper fire, after U.S. forces delivered a baby Iraqi girl they named "America."
As soon as the Marines rolled into the hospital compound, civilian patients and medical staff began emerging with their hands up. Most were allowed to leave, or to return into the building for treatment.
Inside the hospital, the Marines found a small number of weapons, as well as a terrain map of the region.
"We hope your city will return to normal, and that you will no longer live in fear," Brig. Gen. Rick Natonski, commander of the Marine's Task Force Tarawa, told doctors gathered outside the large and relatively modern desert town hospital, where many of the windows were blown out after days of bombing and artillery strikes nearby. "We want to return Iraq to Iraqis."
Earlier Wednesday, U.S. forces spotted a 20-year-old Iraqi woman in labor in a pickup truck. The woman's family had been displaced from another city and was living in tents in Nasiriyah.
"I got the ambulance and sent her to the battalion aid station and delivered a healthy baby girl and named her America. It was a pretty cool way to start the day," said Navy Hospitalman First Class Kyle Morris, 39, of San Clemente, Calif.
