April 04, 2003 Tipster angered by abuse of POW At great risk, Iraqi revealed Jessica's location By Knight Ridder Newspapers MARINE COMBAT HEADQUARTERS, Iraq The Iraqi man who tipped U.S. Marines to the location of American POW Pfc. Jessica Lynch said Thursday he did so after he saw her Iraqi captor slap her twice as she lay wounded in Saddam Hospital. A person, no matter his nationality, is a human being, the tipster, a 32-year-old lawyer whose wife was a nurse at the hospital, said in an interview at Marines headquarters, where he, his wife and daughter are being treated as heroes and guests of honor. He is an extremely courageous man who should serve as an inspiration to all of us to do the right thing, said Lt. Col. Rick Long, spokesman for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. After he saw Lynch slapped, the lawyer slipped into her room at the Saddam Hospital in Nasiriyah and told her, Dont worry. Then he walked 6 miles to the nearest U.S. Marines and told them where she was. He later returned to the hospital, at the request of U.S. commanders, to map the facility and count how many Saddam Hussein loyalists were there. A U.S. commando force whose name remains secret rescued the Army private first class early Wednesday local time. She was taken Thursday to Germany for treatment of wounds she suffered when she was captured. The lawyer, whose first name is Mohammed and who asked that his last name not be published, smiled between every sentence as he recounted in broken but expressive English how he helped the Americans. He learned English at Basra University. Wearing Marine hand-me-downs after fleeing with only the clothes on their backs, Mohammed, his wife, Iman, 32, and 6-year-old daughter, Abir, seemed surprisingly cheerful for a family on the run. Grateful Leathernecks showered them with Marine unit patches, a commemorative coin and an American flag on their way to a refugee center near the port city of Umm Qsar, where they hope to ride out the war. I love America. I like America. Why? I dont know, Mohammed said as he recounted the critical role he played in Lynchs rescue. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has long repressed Iraqs people with such a brutal grip that, even with American troops at the gates to Baghdad, many refuse to rise up against him out of fear that he will outlast the Americans. But Mohammeds tale is one of a man who didnt like what he saw when he walked into the Saddam Hospital last Friday to visit his wife and was told by a doctor friend that an American female POW was in the emergency ward. The friend walked him to the ground-floor ward, taken over by the feared Saddam Fedayeen at the start of the war, and past a window where he saw Lynch, an Army private first class captured after her convoy became lost near Nasiriyah in the opening days of the war. Her head was bandaged, her right arm was in a sling over a white blanket and she had what Mohammed thought was a gunshot wound to a leg. But her real problem then was the black-uniformed Fedayeen commander who everyone addressed as colonel. The man slapped her, Mohammed said. One, two, he added, making single slapping and back slap motions with his right hand. She was very brave, he recalled. My heart cut, Mohammed added, meaning stopped, putting his hand over his chest and grimacing. There, I have decided to go to Americans to give them important information about the woman prisoner. He walked into her room with his doctor friend. I said Good morning. She thought I was a doctor. I say, Dont worry. She smiled, he recalled. Doctors treating Lynch wanted to amputate her leg, Mohammed said, but his doctor friend persuaded them not to. His friend, he said, hates Saddam Hussein and hates security of Saddam Hussein. Mohammed said he told his wife to take their daughter to his fathers house for safety, and then set off on foot to find the American troops he had heard were occupying the edges of Nasiriyah. This was very dangerous for me because American soldiers shoot, he said, throwing up his hands in the air to show how he carefully approached what turned out to be the U.S. Marines. He told them about the woman prisoner, and about a U.S. military uniform he had also seen, presumably of a U.S. soldier killed in the fighting in and around Nasiriyah, some of the heaviest of the war. They asked him to return to the six-story, 234-bed hospital to gather information on its layout, its hallways, stairways and doors, its basement and whether a helicopter could land on its roof. He walked back, with no taxis in sight, even as U.S. jets bombed parts of the city of more than 500,000 people. Boom, boom. I walked under bombs. Fire, Fire, Mohammed recalled. He did the same thing the next day to report back to the Marines. There were 41 Fedayeen based at the hospital, with four guarding Lynchs room in civilian clothes but armed with AK-47 assault rifles and carrying radios. I drew them a map. I drew them five maps, he said, plainly relishing his cloak-and-dagger missions into the heart of Saddams terror network. Fedayeen raided his house the next day, he said, taking away all his possessions and even his car, a Russian-made Muscovitch Brazilia 680. He said a neighbor was shot and her body dragged through the streets just for waving at a U.S. helicopter. Very bad people, he said. There is no kindness in my heart for them. He got his family out of Nasiriyah on Tuesday night, hours before a task force of U.S. commandos rescued Lynch in a raid so noteworthy that the U.S. Central Command in Qatar called a 4:30 a.m. news conference to announce it. Mohammed and his family are now officially temporary refugees. After showers, Mohammed put on an oversized green Marine pullover, his wife put on one of the gray T-shirts that MTV donated to the Leathernecks and his daughter was covered to her knees in a green T-shirt from a Marine chemical warfare unit. I am very happy, he said, adding that his wife wants to work in a hospital helping Americans and that he is eager to help the Marines any way he can until he can return home.
I think thats an awsome story, definately movie prospects there. The Iraqi had a lot of guts to help out like that. Hope there's a lot more like him. On a side note, you got bigger pic of your GS and what colors are it?
Thanks for passing that on...... Can you imagine this Girl becoming the K-garten teacher she wants to be? These kids will very well behaved for all the Teachers after her. Jessica is a True Badass:blast:
That Iraqi man went way beyond what almost any of us would have done.. especially since he was putting his family in grave danger! I hope that he is rewarded for his bravery and maybe seeing that he is educated and a lawyer, he should be offered a place in the new interim Iraqi goverment. He most certainly has a place reserved in Heaven for him and I am glad that the Marines are treating him and his family as heroes because that is what they are. The Marines recognize a true hero when they see one and they have seen one first hand! I hope that some day he will get his wish to meet Pfc Lynch in person. I am sure she wants that also, I know I would! Here's to "Mohammed" and his family.... :beer :beer :beer Brian ( an ex-military man who appreciates what he has done). :TU:
One more thing, since that man sacrificed everything he owned to do the right thing, I hope that a fund will be set up for his family so that they will be able to rebuild their lives. I would be one of the first to donate to it. Brian
Agreed, But I think this is what one should do, especially when considering that a foreign country has come to liberate you and your family. What the lawyer did was brave and heroic, but I feel he did what he felt he should have done to repay the Coalition for what they are doing for him, his family, his friend and his people.
The flip side of all of this is that the butt heads that are screaming for peace (celebrities) will make this a movie and then make millions of dollars while she gets nothing. And the movie will be all about the american bullies taking over a country because of its oil feilds...ou: ou:
That's an incredible story!!! Deserves to have a movie made about it!!:TU: Not only what Mohommed did (which was WAY more than anyone could expect)...but the daring rescue by our Commandos!! The only 'downer' to the whole story, would be the 11 soldiers that weren't so fortunate! Hopefully, that family is rewarded for their efforts!! He really risked everything to save a total stranger! Of course...the same can be said for our troops!!! I suspect we'll hear some more stories like that!:TU:
I should have made one thing clear in my previous post that support for our troops comes first before anything. I would imagine that trust funds will be set up for the families of the soldiers that were killed. My first donation would go there. But what that Iraqi man did still deserves a reward of some kind. I doubt many of us would have done the same had we been in his shoes........ Brian
