A different view of who really saved Private Jessica

Private Lynch was kept alone in a single room, where her nurses would sing her to sleep each night. But as the shelling and shooting intensified near Nasiriya, her doctors moved her to a crowded ward. It was better to hide her in plain sight, they said. After all, as the Americans drew near, Iraqi intelligence agents were certain to take her away.

"When they showed up, I had the nurses tell them she was dead," Dr. Houssona said. "They asked the nurses, `So where is the cadaver?' They told them so many people had died at the hospital that we simply threw the bodies out the door."

Sensing the end was near, the doctors devised a plan. They hired a driver to sneak Private Lynch in an ambulance to an American checkpoint. But when the driver drew near to the American troops, they stopped his car and turned it around before the driver had a chance to speak.

"So we waited," Dr. Houssona said.

They did not have long to wait. Two days later, close to midnight, there was a deafening explosion just beyond the hospital grounds. The thudding staccato of helicopter rotors sounded in the darkness. The American Special Forces had arrived.

The soldiers stormed the hospital, working slowly down the halls. They detained four doctors at gunpoint, Dr. Houssona said, binding their hands with plastic ties.

As one team rescued Private Lynch, he said, a second searched for Iraqi troops and a third dug up the remains of nine bodies, thought to be other American prisoners who were buried on the grounds. All told, the mission took four hours. They vanished just as swiftly as they arrived.

These days, Dr. Houssona and Dr. Uday are struggling to treat Iraqi patients in a hospital lacking the most basic medical supplies. They have not forgotten Jessica Lynch.

"If I could talk to her," Dr. Uday said, "I would wish her a happy life." Dr. Houssona had a message of his own. "I would tell her I miss her," he said.