Updated and bumped -- Jamil who?

Part 34 of a series. Continued from this post. 

What Happened to the AP's Hurriyah Mosque Attack Video?
Confederate Yankee

Kathleen Carroll continues to attack those questioning her news organization’s ability to turn four burned mosques and several homes into one burned mosque, and their ability to turn 24 dead men, women and children into six, while still not acknowledging that they cited an al Qaeda-linked source to get the number up to 24 in the first place. The Associated Press and Executive Editor Carroll are still claiming to stand behind their reporting when the "facts" of the story have been rewritten in the neighborhood of 75-percent...

Oh wait, where was I going with this?

...Ah yes, I remember now.

Kathleen Carroll says she still stands behind the AP's reporting from Hurriyah.

There are reportedly just four mosques in the Hurriyah neighborhood, pulled from this 2003 map:

[image]

That would be the four mosque locations noted in the bottom left quadrant. Is it accurate? Perhaps, perhaps not. It is after all, three years old, and apparently generated by a U.S.-government agency known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency . How accurately they map specific buildings in a foreign capital seems to be open for debate.

The AP claims four mosques in Hurriyah were destroyed: ...

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Warrant Issued For Jamil Hussein
Dan Riehl

I'm not sure what's the real news in this NY Times piece - that apparently an actual warrant has been issued for Jamil Hussein, or that the NYTimes seems to be making an effort to link to blogs more and more. ...

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Gateway Pundit has more here.

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Eric Blowhard is rumored to have a new post up and Media Matters. I won't link to it.

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D'oh!
See-Dubya

Arrgh! The SF Chronicle went into Baghdad's al-Khadra police station. They even talked to a policeman there, who refused to give his name. I had a few questions I hope they could have asked about Khadra's most famous Captain, but he's rarely there... ...

*** Update and bump. Original timestamp 00:33

The Latest On Jamil Hussein
Posted by Curt

I've been in touch with Bill Costlow (the CPATT (Civilian Police Assistance Training Team) representative) since he has been back in-country and I have a few interesting developments on this story.

First, the AP story:

Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press.

But guess what Bill just confirmed?  Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf never acknowledged that there was a Capt. Jamil Hussein assigned to the Khadra station, he confirmed to the AP that there was a Capt. Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim assigned there.  Apparently he is the source for the AP even though he still, to this day (according to Bill Costlow), denies being the source.

So what do we have so far? ...

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Did the AP Lie About Jamil Hussein Being Found?
Confederate Yankee

Or is this just being lost in translation? Curt, at Flopping Aces with the apparent bombshell:

Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf never acknowledged that there was a Capt. Jamil Hussein assigned to the Khadra station, he confirmed to the AP that there was a Capt. Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim assigned there. Apparently he is the source for the AP even though he still, to this day (according to Bill Costlow), denies being the source.

So what do we have so far?

That the AP has lied again in their response. The AP specifically stated that Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf acknowledged Jamil Hussein exists when he did no such thing. He acknowledged a completely different name the AP gave him but not a Jamil Hussein.

This, of course, means that Michelle Malkin nailed it on December 20. Anyone got a good crow recipe for Eric Boehlert?

I'll have more on this as I process the implications...

Update: Before I get to worked up about this one way or the other, I'm going to want some verification that Costlow is correct. This is something that Curt is asking Costlow to triple-check, and I am also asking MNF-I PAO to verifiy as well. Until then, let's agree to take this with a grain of salt.

Why?

Because if Brig. General Abdul-Karim Khalaf did not tell the Associated Press that there was a Captain Jamil Hussein at the Khadra police station, then ...

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Boehlert Refuses to Correct Error
— in Column About Warbloggers’ Refusal to Correct Errors
Patterico

Media Matters’s Eric Boehlert has this column about conservative bloggers’ alleged refusal to admit error regarding Jamil Hussein.

In the column, Boehlert refuses to admit his own previous error regarding Jamil Hussein.

Who says there’s no irony on the Internet, Joe Rago?

It’s just not all intentional.

Boehlert’s error, you may recall from an earlier post of mine, was made in a recent column, in which he reported that Hussein “was under arrest” Thursday. As evidence, that column cited a report that said only that Hussein “faces” arrest — and which also makes clear that any prosecution is unlikely.

My guess: Boehlert wanted Hussein to have actually been arrested, so that he could pin that on bloggers. So he wished and hoped, and voila! in his mind, it was so. And so that’s what he wrote.

Is he unaware of the error? Nah. ...

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Evolving AP Goes From "4 Torched Mosques
& Several Homes- 24 Dead" to "1 Burnt Doorway- 6 Dead"
Gateway Pundit

The evolving AP in their 6 Torched Sunni story went from "4 torched mosques and several homes with 24 reported dead" to "one burnt doorway and Six torched Sunnis".

And, The New York Times wonders why bloggers are not satisfied with the AP's story?

And, of course, the nutty Left remains clueless.

Confederate Yankee asks the AP, "Where's the video?"... He also has a map of the Hurriya neighborhood from 2003 with 4 mosques listed, however there are likely more than the four listed. The MNF-I inspected 4 Sunni mosques alone in the neighborhood after the 6 Sunni story. And, Confederate Yankee reports that the mosque mentioned in the original AP article was the Mustafa (Ahbab al-Mustafa) Mosque although this was later dropped from the AP reports. ...

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Jamil Hussein - What's In a Name?
By Dafydd ab Hugh

According to Curt at Flopping Aces, one reason that the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior (MOI) -- boss of the National Police -- and Multinational Force Iraq (MNFI) were unable to locate Police Captain Jamil Hussein at the Khadra police station may have been... that there is no Police Captain Jamil Hussein at the Khadra police station.

Curt has a source (Bill Costlow) at the Civilian Police Assistance Training Team (CPATT, Americans working in Iraq to train Iraqis in basic police procedures) who says that it turns out that the so-called (literally) "Jamil Hussein" touted by AP as their source, the source whose full name AP now claims to be Jamil Gholaiem Hussein -- is in fact actually named Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim. No "Hussein" in his name anywhere.

But guess what Bill just confirmed? Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf never acknowledged that there was a Capt. Jamil Hussein assigned to the Khadra station, he confirmed to the AP that there was a Capt. Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim assigned there. Apparently he is the source for the AP even though he still, to this day (according to Bill Costlow), denies being the source.

Bear in mind, this is by way of a heads-up; there is no independent confirmation of what Costlow told Curt. But on the other hand, as I noted over on Big Lizards, we also have not seen anybody but AP claim that Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, spokesman for the MOI, had admitted that "Jamil Hussein" worked at that station after all:

Since we now know that at least one Jamil exists in a disclosed location, it should be child's play for Reuters, the Times, the Times, the Post, CNN, or some other newspaper or television network to hound the guy into an interview with them: have they? For that matter, has anybody -- other than AP -- even interviewed Brigadier Khalaf and asked him about Jamil Hussein?

So we have the unsupported word of AP (which did not publish a transcript of the alleged admission) vs. the unsupported word of a blogger quoting a member of CPATT. Were I a betting man (oh wait, I am), I'd have to give the odds to Flopping Aces in this one. Especially insofar as, to this date, I don't believe AP has even acknowledged that their original story (four mosques "burned," 24 Sunnis slain) was completely wrong. They simply changed it quietly, in the dead of night, without noting the changes... which does not inspire confidence in their confident assertions today.

If true (if!), it would be a pretty darned good explanation of why MOI and MNFI were unable to find Jamil Hussein: because AP lied about his name, giving him a pseudonym then daring anyone to find him.

Here, it's just about like this: ...

Read the whole thing; Dafydd at his best.

Part 34 of a series. Part 35