Iraqi doctors who treated US soldier Jessica Lynch have dismissed allegations made in her biography that she was raped during her capture in Iraq.
Surgeons who treated Private Lynch after her convoy was attacked near the southern city of Nassiriya in the early days of the US-led invasion in March said they were shocked and hurt by accusations that she was sexually assaulted. They said she had the best possible care.
In I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story,published today, author Rick Bragg says her medical records indicated Ms Lynch, who was evacuated by helicopter from a Nassiriya hospital in a US commando raid widely publicised throughout the world, had been raped.
Dr Jamal Kadhim Shwail was the first doctor to examine Lynch when she was brought to Nassiriya's military hospital by Iraqi special police. He said Lynch was lying in hospital reception, unconscious and in shock from blood loss.
"We only had a few minutes to save her life, we found a vein in her neck to give her fluids and blood," Mr Shwail told Reuters at his home in Nassiriya.
"She was a woman, young and alone in a strange country," he said. "It was our duty to look after her and we did. Now people are saying she was raped . . . it pains us." Mr Shwail said he saw no signs of rape but neither was he looking for them.
Ms Lynch's wounds were so bad a sexual assault would have killed her, he said. "If she had been raped there is no way she could have survived it. She was fighting for her life, her body was broken. What sort of an animal would even think of that?"
Ms Lynch's own recollections of the events differ significantly with the official version given by the Pentagon.
She said she was not engaged in a fierce gun battle with Iraqis, as US defence officials originally claimed. She said her M-16 machine gun jammed, adding: "I didn't kill nobody."
She also denied claims by Iraqi lawyer Mohammed Odeh Al Rehaief - credited with leading US troops to her rescue - that she was beaten by a Fedayeen soldier as she lay in her hospital bed.
She also told how Iraqi doctors tried to take her to safety in an ambulance but turned back when they were fired on by US troops.