Army Describes What Went Wrong for Jessica Lynch’s Unit

The U.S. Army unit that included Pfc. Jessica Lynch was ambushed by Iraqi soldiers in March after the Americans, exhausted and isolated, became lost in the city of Nasiriyah with guns that jammed, radios that malfunctioned and heavy trucks that sank into soft sand and marshland, the Army has concluded.

A 15-page report from Headquarters, Department of the Army, also clears up what happened to Lynch, a 19-year-old soldier from rural West Virginia who became the face of American heroism and grit in the war against the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Although news accounts at first suggested that Lynch was wounded as she bravely tried to shoot her way out of the ambush, the Army now believes that she was “severely injured” only after the Humvee in which she was riding was hit by gunfire and then slammed into a stalled tractor-trailer.

The Times obtained a copy of the report Wednesday. The document is to be formally released today.

Both inside and outside the government, the Iraq war has been described as a textbook example of superior planning and precise execution. But the incident on the morning of March 23 involving the 507th Maintenance Company continues to haunt the U.S. military, particularly as families of the 11 soldiers killed and nine wounded demand answers and accountability for what the report called the “tragic results” of error.

The Army hopes that the report will help sort out fact from fiction concerning those fateful 60 to 90 minutes of combat. And the report stresses that the 33 soldiers, despite their commander’s navigational mistake and the breakdown of weapons and equipment, conducted themselves admirably.

“Soldiers fight as they are trained to fight,” the report says. “Once engaged in battle, the soldiers of the 507th Maintenance Company fought hard.

“They fought the best they could until there was no longer a means to resist. They defeated ambushes, overcame hastily prepared enemy obstacles, defended one another, provided life-saving aid and inflicted casualties on the enemy.”

The 507th, based at Ft. Bliss, Texas, was not a combat unit; its members included cooks, mechanics, technicians and clerks. On March 21, the company crossed into Iraq from Kuwait as part of a convoy supporting a Patriot missile battalion. Early into the deployment, the company’s commander, Capt. Troy King, misread his assigned route, the report says.

According to the Army findings, King relied primarily on his global positioning system device and an annotated map on which he had highlighted “Route Blue.” King “believed in error that Blue was his assigned route,” the report says.

King could not be reached for comment Wednesday. A spokeswoman at Ft. Bliss said he was on routine leave.

As the convoy sped north, the 507th, with 18 vehicles, “bogged down in the soft sand,” the report says. “Drivers from many units became confused due to the darkness, causing some vehicles to separate from their march columns.” And the route King chose, the report says, “proved to be extremely difficult, over rough terrain.”

The company lagged behind the rest of the convoy. Time was lost repairing vehicles. Soldiers who had not slept for at least two days were tired and hot as they approached the marshy outskirts of Nasiriyah on March 23.

Seeing what they thought was an industrial complex or an oil refinery, they became further disoriented and missed another series of turns. The batteries in their hand-held radios died.

King and other soldiers noticed armed Iraqi soldiers at two checkpoints. Some Iraqis waved to the Americans.

The report says the Iraqis, including civilians who drove by in trucks with mounted machine guns, at first showed “no hostile intent.”

Members of the 507th were trained to hold fire unless they felt threatened, and they had been advised to expect “happy fire” -- shots fired in celebration of freedom.

Finally King, crossing the Euphrates River on his way out of Nasiriyah, realized that he was off Route Blue. He set up a security perimeter, and soldiers were ordered to “be vigilant” and to “lock and load” their weapons.

King hoped that a series of turns retracing the 507th’s path through the city would get the company back on track. But a 10-ton truck ran out of fuel. Then the company was hit by sporadic small-arms fire.

King ordered the company to hurry along, but in the “speed and confusion” it missed another turn. A 5-ton tractor-trailer broke down. Its driver was picked up while a passenger, Sgt. Donald Walters, apparently “fought his way” toward a canal and “was killed in action.”

“The circumstances of his death cannot be conclusively determined by available information,” the report says.

King then split the company into three groups, according to the Army investigation.

The six soldiers in Group 1, which included King, fought their way south through the city. Iraqis tried to block their exit with vehicles and debris.

“Most of the soldiers in this group report that they experienced weapons malfunctions,” the Army says. “These malfunctions may have resulted from inadequate individual maintenance in a desert environment.”

But they made it out and soon joined a Marine Corps tank battalion.

Ten soldiers were in Group 2. One of them, Cpl. Damien Luten, “attempted to return fire with the 507th’s only .50-caliber machine gun but the weapon failed,” the report says. “Luten was wounded in the leg while reaching for his M-16.”

Small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades burst around them. Their escape route also was blocked. Five soldiers were wounded, including Spc. James Grubb, who “returned fire with his M-16 until wounded in both arms, despite reported jamming of his weapon.”

Marines also rescued Group 2.

In Group 3, a Humvee carrying five soldiers, including Lynch, was “hit by direct or indirect fire and crashed at a high rate of speed into the rear of the stopped tractor-trailer.”

The driver of the Humvee, 1st Sgt. Robert Dowdy, “was killed on impact.” Pfc. Lori Ann Piestewa “survived the crash but was seriously injured and died in captivity.” The deaths of two other passengers, Sgt. George Buggs and Pfc. Edward Anguiano, “remain under investigation.”

Lynch was “seriously injured and captured.” Now being treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, she has no recollection of the incident, her doctors have said.

This group of 17 soldiers took additional casualties, among them Pvt. Brandon Sloan, who “was killed by enemy fire before his vehicle came to a stop.” Chief Warrant Officer Johnny Villareal Mata “was killed, having sustained multiple wounds.”

Two more vehicles were destroyed and four more soldiers lost, including Pfc. Howard Johnson Jr.

His father, the Rev. Howard Johnson Sr., pastor of the Truevine Missionary Baptist Church near Mobile, Ala., said Wednesday that the Army had briefed him on the findings.

“They offered all kinds of sympathies,” he said. “They were polite, they were very thorough in their presentation, and I think they did a good job.

“I’m pleased to know my son died a hero, and I’m proud of him for that. Still, that doesn’t bring Howard back, though he will linger long in my memory, as long as I’m alive.”

Johnson, who opposed the war, believes that the military should punish some of its own for what happened and that the families should be compensated in some way.

“If you don’t punish anybody,” he said, “I don’t know how the Army can take control of situations like this in the future.”

The Army’s inability to definitively state what happened to her son Donald rankles Arlene Walters, who wonders if he was left in the desert to die.

She said an Army autopsy showed that he had been shot twice in the back and once in the leg and stabbed several times in the abdomen.

“We’ve sat down and dissected every sentence of this report,” she said in a telephone interview from her home in Salem, Ore.

Walters has read accounts by Iraqi officials who described an American fighting bravely during the ambush. She wants to know if that courageous soldier was her 33-year-old son.

The Army report “doesn’t really give me closure. I’m not sure I’ll ever have that,” Walters said.