The former private, who was rescued in April, said she was upset by the way the Defence Department has portrayed the episode and that the film should not have been made.

Lynch's criticism comes as the administration of President George W. Bush battles to win the hearts and minds of the American public over Iraq policy.

US television networks repeatedly aired images of Lynch being carried on a stretcher after the rescue in a dramatic green night footage film.

Asked by ABC News if the official portrayal of her rescue troubled her, Lynch replied: "Yeah, it does. It does that they used me as a way to symbolize all this stuff. I mean, yeah, it's wrong ... I don't know what they had ... or why they filmed it."

Extracts of the interview to be shown next Tuesday have been released in advance.

It was reported at the time that the troops who rescued Lynch had engaged in a fire-fight during the operation, but Lynch said "I don't think it happened quite like that".

Lynch's company was capture after a convoy took a wrong turn and drove into enemy hands. Eleven Americans were killed and Lynch suffered multiple injuries.

But while critical of the Pentagon, Lynch remains praiseworthy of rescuers.

The Defense Department did not immediately comment on the case Friday. But Lynch's remarks will stoke the mounting debate about how the Iraq war is being portrayed.

A poll by Harris Interactive released Thursday showed the public approval rating for Bush's handling of Iraq had fallen to 41 percent, a total 58 percent of respondents said they disapproved of Bush's handling of Iraq.

Newspaper reports have spoken of the anger of some US officials about how the Iraq conflict is being portrayed in the US media.

"When the Bushies say they want the bad news put in perspective, do they really mean they don't want it reported at all?" Washington Post columnist Howard Kurtz asked this week.

The New York Times said it had obtained an e-mail from an aide to the US envoy to Iraq, Paul Bremmer, that reportedly simply stated "I have come to hate the media."

Some media critics say television networks have been hampered in their war coverage back home by a US military ban on filming the coffins of dead soldiers being sent home.

The Pentegon's decision to allow reporters to travel with army units during the race to seize Baghdad was generally viewed as a success, but as the US death toll of the post-war occupation rises, the US media has become more critical.

Footage of returning coffins drapped in the Stars and Stripes flag carries huge resonance in the United States, but film crews and photographers have barred for over a decade from Dover Air Base in Delaware, the main reception base for the remains of GIs killed overseas.

In March, on the eve of the Iraq invasion, the Pentagon sent a directive to US military bases reiterating the policy.

"There will be no arrival ceremonies for, or media coverage of, deceased military personnel returning to or departing from Ramstein (in Germany) or Dover base, to include interim stops," the directive said.

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