This post excerpts Ret. Gen. Michael Delong's response to the recent hearings.

AS the deputy commander at United States Central Command from 2001 to 2003, I represented the military in dealing with politicians regarding the capture and rescue of Pfc. Jessica D. Lynch in Iraq, and thus I can speak with authority about what really happened after her maintenance convoy got lost near Nasiriya in 2003 and she was taken prisoner. I feel compelled to respond to accusations that have been made in recent days by several politicians.

The initial reports from the field regarding Private Lynch stated that she had gone down fighting, had emptied her weapon and that her actions were heroic. Based on these reports, politicians from her home state, West Virginia, wanted the military to award her the Medal of Honor. Their request rose up the ladder until finally it reached me.

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... when the request landed on my desk, I told the politicians that we’d need to wait. I made it clear that no one would be awarded anything until all of the evidence was reviewed.

The politicians did not like this. They called repeatedly, through their Congressional liaison, and pressured us to recommend her for the medal, even before all the evidence had been analyzed. I would not relent and we had many heated discussions.

The politicians repeatedly said that a medal would be good for women in the military; I responded that the paramount issue was finding out what had really happened.

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Since it seems pretty clear that it was West Virginia politicians hyping the Lynch story it appears to me that the hearings on Lynch made a bad faith allegation against the military. While the chances of Congress investigating its own is remote, it seems unethical for the media who received the hyped story to let this slander go unchallenged.