[url]http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/05/19/sprj.irq.bbc.lynch.dod/index.html[/url]
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Any charge that the U.S. military misrepresented the facts of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch's rescue April 1 from an Iraqi hospital to make the mission appear more dramatic or heroic is "void of all facts and absolutely ridiculous" the Pentagon said Monday.
Responding to a BBC report that called the Pentagon accounts of the rescue "one of the most stunning pieces of news management ever conceived," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said, "I think that allegation is ridiculous, I don't know how else to respond. The idea that we would put a number of forces in danger unnecessarily to recover one of our POWs is just ridiculous."
The then-19-year-old Lynch and five fellow members of the Army's 507th Maintenance Company were taken prisoner March 23 outside Nasiriya, Iraq. (Story of other survivors)
A week later, acting on intelligence information, U.S. Special Forces led a team of Marines, Army Rangers, Navy SEALs and airmen went into the hospital to rescue Lynch.
The BBC report quoted witnesses and hospital officials as stating the United States knew that there were no Iraqi forces at the hospital when it conducted the commando raid, and that the United States special operations forces had used Hollywood theatrics, including blank ammunition, to make a show of rescuing private Lynch.