Probably the most sinister thing the administration has done during the Iraq War is fabricate the story of Jessica Lynch, who was "kidnapped" by Iraqis (sort of) and had a harrowing (kind of) tale to tell (except, she wasn't the one telling the story; the Pentagon was telling it to any reporters who would listen).

In its original incarnation, the Jessica Lynch story was a daring tale of the first rescue of a POW since World War II and the first-ever woman POW. The New York Times reported on 2 April 2003 that Pfc. Jessica Lynch had been rescued "from Nasiriya, Iraq, where she had been held captive since March 23. [. . .] She was one of 15 members of the 507th Ordnance Maintenance Company, which was attacked by Iraqi forces after taking a wrong turn off a highway in southern-central Iraq as American troops advanced toward Nasiriya on the first Sunday of the war." The story of the harrowing firefight paints Lynch as a modern-day Rambo, but the reports of her heroism became gradually less conflated as time went on. By 18 June, a NYT editorial noted, "Initial reports, instigated in the patriotic fog of war, had Jane Wayne intimations of a woman warrior, 'waiflike' but determined, going down emptying her M-16. These have since been discounted by officials telling of a jammed rifle and crushing injuries suffered in a midflight collision of vehicles. Iraqi medical personnel in the hospital when American troops found her have objected to the idea that Private Lynch was in need of immediate rescue at all, saying they kept her safe and treated her well."

Then we discover that the Lynch rescue was most likely staged. Why? So that America could have a "hero" to look up to in the Iraq War, something to keep our morale high, something which would speak to our very souls. As Holden Caulfield might say, the whole episode was phony.

The Jessica Lynch Story, a TV movie pounded out an impressive six months after the incident, is a step removed from a lie. NYT notes, on 5 October, "It is based on the recollections of Mohammed Odeh Al- Rehaief, the Iraqi lawyer who tipped off American soldiers to Private Lynch's whereabouts." Lynch herself has come out against the supposed story of her rescue, angry that she was a pawn in Department of Defense propaganda.