WaPo Started Jessica Lynch Myth Despite Warning From Military

Ray Robison, writing in The American Thinker, reveals the true genesis of the Jessica Lynch myth:

...the story of her shoot-out with Iraqi forces was not a product of the US military but of the US media.

The US media created this recounting of her exploits from vague, unofficial statements by "undisclosed officials" and having been revealed as rumor mongers started looking for someone to blame. Who else would they pin it on but the US military?

Robison cites this Washington Post story as the first time that Lynch was incorrectly reported as having shot several Iraqi soldiers. This story was the catalyst for other media accounts, despite this warning from the article:

Several officials cautioned that the precise sequence of events is still being determined, and that further information will emerge as Lynch is debriefed. Reports thus far are based on battlefield intelligence, they said, which comes from monitored communications and from Iraqi sources in Nasiriyah whose reliability has yet to be assessed. Pentagon officials said they had heard "rumors" of Lynch's heroics but had no confirmation.

Of course now, media and other anti-war forces are trying to paint the military as having created the Jessica Lynch myth.