Wednesday, 21 February 2007
 

And the stonewalling continues

Part 50 of my Jamilgate series. Continued from this post.

Back to the Board
Confederate Yankee

Last Thursday, I provided Associated Press Media Relations Director Linda Wagner with confirmation that a January 4 Steven R. Hurst article appears to be 180-degrees from the truth. To date, neither Wagner nor any other AP contact has deemed to provide any sort of response. Frankly, I didn't expect one. The Hurst article was a CYA piece written to provide cover for shoddy Associated Press reporting, and it is not in their personal interests to admit that they've been caught apparently fabricating that story from the ground up.

I've thus resorted to contacting several members of the AP Board of Directors with the following letter sent out just moments ago, hoping that they will display the integrity that neither AP reporters nor senior management seem to have any interest in maintaining.

If they decline to investigate this extended "Jayson Blair" moment, then their integrity and credibility as a news organization, to put it mildly, is shot.

Here is a copy of the letter, with links added for context and HTML formatting added: ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on February 21, 2007 at 03:51 PM in Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Jamilgate, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 15 February 2007
 

What's in a name?

Part 49 of my Jamilgate series. Continued from this post.

The Jamil Hussein Name Game -- Iraqi General Weighs In
PJM in Seattle

What’s in a name? When it comes to one that starts “Jamil Hussein,” and involves the credibility of the Associated Press, quite a bit. From “Is AP Iraq source Jamil Hussein for real?” the story has morphed into “Who, exactly, is the source and what is his real name.?” Blogger Bob Owens of Confederate Yankee has been bulldogging this story from his sources in Iraq. Here’s his latest update in this game of “Now we name him. Now we don’t.”

Special Report by Bob Owens @ Confederate Yankee

The highest officers of the Associated Press, including Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll, International Editor Daniszewski, and Media Relations Director Linda Wagner have long maintained that their long-time but disputed Iraqi police source named “Jamil Hussein” was one “Jamil Gholaiem Hussein.” AP Writer Steven R. Hurst triumphantly reported on January 4th that Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Brigadier General Abdul-Karim Khalaf confirmed the AP’s contention:

The Interior Ministry acknowledged Thursday that an Iraqi police officer whose existence had been denied by the Iraqis and the U.S. military is in fact an active member of the force, and said he now faces arrest for speaking to the media. ...

This morning, Civilian Police Assistance Training Team (CPATT) liason to the Iraqi Interior Ministry, Bill Costlow, provided me this morning with a direct quote from the above referenced Brigadier General Abdul-Karim Khalaf regarding Jamil Hussein. This statement flatly contradicts what Steven R. Hurst claimed BG Abdul-Karim Khalaf said in his January 4th article.

Brigadier General Abdul-Karim Khalaf stated:

“We couldn’t identify CPT Jamil right away because the AP used the wrong name: we couldn’t find a “CPT Jamil Hussein” — but later, when we saw the name “Jamil Gulaim Hussein”, it became obvious that they were talking about CPT Jamil Gulaim Innad XX XXXXXXX [Name redacted for security reasons — Editor]” as the only ‘Jamil Gulaim’ assigned there (ever) and whose assignment records show he previously worked in Yarmouk, as also reported by the AP. Since the issue for us is the release of false news into the media, we’re satisfied that the AP is no longer quoting a questionable source.”

The General flatly states that Jamil Hussein is not Jamil Hussein as AP still contends, but is instead, CPT Jamil Gulaim Innad XX XXXXXXX. ...

More extensive background information on this story is available at Bob Owens’ personal blog, Confederate Yankee.

Contributed by Bill Faith on February 15, 2007 at 06:09 PM in Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Jamilgate, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 06 February 2007
 

Of online snipers and columnists who can't shoot straight

Part 48 of my Jamilgate series. Continued from this post.

"An online sniper" 
Michelle Malkin

My friends at Davids Medienkritik take a look at a moonbat smear in Germany. ...

***

FAZ's Dishonest Smear Targets Malkin - Bloggers
Nina Rehfeld's Attempted Hit Job - Or How it Backfired
(By Ray D.)

A small German blog recently chronicled a particularly suspect article authored by correspondent Nina Rehfeld for the FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - one of Germany's most respected daily papers). The piece, entitled "Debacle for the Online Sniper" can only be described as a hit job gone terribly wrong. The "online sniper" in question is none other than journalist and top blogger Michelle Malkin:  [image]

The FAZ piece reads as follows (our translation - this is the entire article):

"Blogs
Debacle for the Online Sniper
By Nina Rehfeld, Phoenix

[...]

Memo to FAZ: The Outcry is Not Silenced

Rehfeld would be right if the only aspect of the AP story brought into question by bloggers was the existence of source Jamil Hussein. In reality, there are two elements of the original AP story that remain controversial: The first, Mr. Hussein's reported claim that four mosques were "destroyed" in sectarian violence, has been proven demonstrably false. The second, that six Iraqi Sunnis were burned alive as Iraqi soldiers looked on, remains uncorroborated and has been disputed by other sources. Bloggers continue to discuss both - Ms. Rehfeld completely fails to acknowledge the controversy surrounding either.

***

If Michelle's an online sniper, what am I?
Posted By Uncle Jimbo

MM has a piece up where David's Medienkritik takes apart a report published in the Frankfurt papers. It's the same garbahj about the AP's Jamil Husseining, and the many gaping holes still remaining in their reports. MM wiped up the floor with them many times, yet this reporter parrots AP's lies to an audience unlikely to have access to the real story.

My question is, if MM is an online sniper, what am I?

I like the implication that she puts precision-aimed fire on well-defined targets, but I am a bit more of a blunt instrument than that.

Online attack helicopter- I like the gun on the Apache that swivels when the pilot turns his head.

Online A-10 Warthog- The growl of that gun and the scunion it rains down are tempting too ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on February 6, 2007 at 12:43 PM in Jamilgate, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 03 February 2007
 

The AP's non-correction correction (Updated and bumped)

Part 47 of my Jamilgate series. Continued from this post.

This may be the last post I write about Jamilgate [or not]. What else is there to say? al-AP got caught in a lie and is never going to fess up. The truth's on the web where it's available to anyone who cares enough to track it down.  It is interesting to note the lefty reactions to the situation, as Bob notes here:

Oh, the Hysteria!
Confederate Yankee

I'm rapidly losing faith in America's public education system.

I wrote a post yesterday titled The Case For Outing Jamil?, where I asked readers a rather simple rhetorical question:

Should I "out" Jamil Hussein, revealing his real, full, and complete name?

I stated specifically that I was leaning against publishing his name, but wanted to hear readers debate the pros and cons.

Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised at how so many of the middleweight liberal blogs decided to twist what I actually wrote to make the claim that I was attempting to get Jamil Hussein killed. ...

[List deleted. I don't link to sites like that.]

Please keep in mind that many of the bloggers, and especially their commenters, seem to be afflicted with Tourettes, so if you don't desire to read truly foul language, you might want to skip these links. ...

The delicious irony of all this, is that for their collective hysteria to have any merit whatsoever, then they would have to believe that the Associated Press is dishonest in this post where they claim Jamil Hussein's real name is... drumroll please... Jamil Hussein. ...

*** Update and bump. Original timestamp 12:30

The AP's non-correction correction 
Michelle Malkin

Wow. Just wow.

The Associated Press puts its advocacy spin and institutional arrogance on naked display in a story hot off the wires. You know those four mosques that AP reporter Qais Al Bashir and AP source Capt. Jamil Hussein claimed had been "destroyed" and "torched" and "burned and blew up"? The ones we showed were attacked, but not destroyed, in our Hot Air video report and NY Post column 10 days ago?

Well, newsflash: The AP has just acknowledged that the "destroyed" mosques are still standing. The headline: "Sunni Mosques Still Show Damage in Iraq." Here's the lead paragraph, which mischaracterizes the AP's initial reporting and description of the mosques:

Four Sunni mosques attacked in late November in the embattled Hurriyah neighborhood of Baghdad still bear scars from the attacks and all are now either under Shiite Muslim control or closed.

Immediately after the Nov. 24 incidents, an Associated Press story quoted an Iraqi police captain saying the four mosques had been attacked and six men doused with fuel and burned alive at one of them. In some early versions of the AP story, which was updated several times as more information became available, the police officer referred to the mosques being burned or blown up.

Nowhere does the AP acknowledge that it reported that the mosques were destroyed. ...

***

Jamilgate: The AP non-corrects again
Bryan Preston

Michelle has the AP’s latest on Hurriya and her response, to which I have very little to add.

Except one thing. In its initial report, the AP accused the Iraqi Army unit on the scene of standing by while Shia attackers dragged six Sunnis out of a mosque, doused them with kerosene and then set them alight, killing them. The AP’s latest report on Hurriya just glides right past that serious and unsubstantiated allegation.

The AP’s original and so far unretracted report, sourced to Jamil Hussein, was a smear of the Iraqi Army. According to the US military’s official report, the responding Iraqi unit, the 1/1/6 of the IA, called the local fire station to put out the fire at one of the mosques and attempted to capture the attackers. The unit, which included an Iraqi general, remained on the scene until the situation had calmed. That’s what they’re supposed to do.

The AP and Jamil Hussein smeared them by accusing them of standing by doing nothing while the attackers murdered six Sunnis with kerosene fire. Kerosene doesn’t burn quickly–it has a high flash point and burns slowly. The murders would have taken a few minutes, long enough for any IA unit on the scene to put out the fire and capture the militia fighters who started it.

But of course, none of that actually happened according to the military’s official incident report. And there’s no evidence beyond the word of Jamil Hussein that it did happen. It’s hard enough to stand up the Iraqi Army when it’s in the middle of a war inside its own country. Media smears when they do the job our troops are training them to do don’t help at all. ...

***

AP Owes, But Does Not Give, Correction
Patterico

Is this a correction?

Four Sunni mosques attacked in late November in the embattled Hurriyah neighborhood of Baghdad still bear scars from the attacks and all are now either under Shiite Muslim control or closed.

Immediately after the Nov. 24 incidents, an Associated Press story quoted an Iraqi police captain saying the four mosques had been attacked and six men doused with fuel and burned alive at one of them. In some early versions of the AP story, which was updated several times as more information became available, the police officer referred to the mosques being burned or blown up.

Uh, AP? You also reported that Sunnis had claimed the mosques were destroyed:

Sunni residents in a volatile northwest Baghdad neighborhood claimed Friday that revenge-seeking Shiite militiamen had destroyed four Sunni mosques, burned homes and killed many people, while the Shiite-dominated police force stood by and did nothing. ...

So were four mosques “destroyed,” as the AP claimed in stories still available on Nexis? It sure doesn’t sound that way:

Since then, the AP has confirmed damage at three of the four mosques, including burn damage at two and slight damage at a third.

Unless “destroyed” has been redefined to encompass “slight damage,” it looks like the AP finally owes readers a correction.

This isn’t it, AP. A correction entails owning up to your mistakes and explaining how you got it wrong.

*** Update and bump. Previous timestamp 2007.01.31.15:33

AP (and Now Sadly, No!) Owes a Correction
Patterico

Recently I quoted an AP story that reported that Sunnis had claimed that four mosques were “destroyed” in Hurriya back in November. I then said:

I understand that some ill-informed leftist bloggers have claimed, without proof, that this language was out there for 20 minutes and never made it into an actual story. I’m not linking these morons out of principle. You can easily find their stupid posts yourself. The name of their moronblog rhymes with the phrase “Madly Ho.” My response to these dunderheads is simple. Uh, ill-informed leftist bloggers? Meet Lexis/Nexis.

OK, fine. I’ll break my rule, just this once — for the entertainment value.

I was referring to this post, in which Sadly, No! blogger D. Aristophanes said that the term “destroyed” is

a term that appeared in a raw AP feed for approximately 20 minutes, and which was removed before a single story was published.

In my recent post, I said that Sadly, No! was wrong to say that this language was out there for 20 minutes and never made it into an actual story. Then Gavin M. doubled down — big-time. Referring to my post, he said: ...

***

Painting the Other Side with a Broad Brush is Fun! And Fun Trumps Accuracy!
Patterico

Brad from Sadly, No! says to me:

I said that the AP should have run a correction of its initial report, since the language didn’t accurately describe what actually happened. I don’t know what more you want me to say about it. Oh wait, yes I do. You want me to admit that the AP is involved in helping the terrorists.

Oooooooh! The conservative boogeyman thinks the AP is in league with the terrorists! Ooooooooh!

Except, of course, that I don’t — as a cursory search of my site reveals. For example, here’s my post from January 5:

You’d have to be crazy to think that there is a widespread conspiracy of AP reporters to help the enemy. Most of them are out there doing a dangerous job. I don’t always think the information is reliable, which is in part a function of the nature of Iraq in general . . . but we should recognize the sacrifice they are making to try to tell us what’s going on.

Meanwhile, Brad’s howling pack of monkey-commenters shrieks that folks like me are simply trying to hide the fact that things are bad in Iraq. A guy calling himself “fridgemagnet” is typical: “This has never been anything except a tactic to distract attention from the actual events.” I have quoted Allah’s take on this before, but in light of the monkey-shrieks, maybe it’s worth the effort to quote it again, with my emphasis: ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on February 3, 2007 at 02:33 PM in Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Jamilgate, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 30 January 2007
 

The Case for Outing Jamil?

Part 46 of my Jamilgate series. Continued from this post.

The Case for Outing Jamil?
Confederate Yankee

I'm presenting working on what will likely be my last post on the Jamil Hussein/Hurriyah mosque attacks debacle. I've got some emails out to several sources and the AP itself attempting to tie up loose ends, and I won't write a final draft until those addressed have a reasonable amount of time to respond.

I did, however, have one question I addressed to all of those I queried, that I'd like to ask my readers as well:

Should I "out" Jamil, revealing his real, full, and complete name? ...

As long as there's any chance whatsoever that AP simply made up a name that by pure coincidence bore a similarity to a real person, I wouldn't.

According to Haider Ajina (in his 40s, Iraqi immigrant ~20 years ago, still has family there, US citizen, emails me sometimes but I'm quoting Gateway Pundit here) Iraqi boys named Jamil are almost as common as American boys named Sue. I figure it's 99.9% likely if AP was quoting Jamil Someone you have the right Jamil. But... what if some reporter made the name up thinking it would be like quoting "Mr. Susan Owens" and scored accidentally?

***

Jules C: New Media on Old Media

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 30, 2007 at 12:56 PM in Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Jamilgate, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 29 January 2007
 

Jamil Safari

Part 45 of my Jamilgate series. Continued from this post.

Walkback?
Confederate Yankee

In the wake of my January 25 letter to the Board of Directors of the Associated Press concerning the news organization's inaccurate reporting of the November 24 Hurriyah assault by Shia militias on Sunni mosques--a letter in which I provided to the Board of Directors the real name of AP source "Jamil Hussein"--the official Associated Press web site containing all of AP's official responses regarding Hurriyah has curiously withdrawn the January 4 article by AP reporter Steven R. Hurst claiming that Jamil Hussein is Jamil Hussein.

A screen capture of the AP web page from January 8 containing the Hurst article is captured here.

A screen capture of the AP Web page, minus the Hurst article, as captured this morning, is online here.

Is the Associated Press beginning a walkback of it's Hurriyah coverage? If so, quietly attempting to scrub their reporting to date is perhaps not the best way to do so.

Perhaps they should start with a formal retraction acknowledging their comedy of errors. ...

***

Others linking: Jules Crittenden

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 29, 2007 at 12:04 PM in Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Jamilgate, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 26 January 2007
 

Part 44 of my Jamilgate series. Continued from this post.

Right to the Top
Confederate Yankee

One thing I've learned over the course of my 35 years, is that when you have a customer service issue and the lower level support staff won't help you, it helps to go to their supervisors to get a satisfactory resolution. So what do you do when the person blocking your attempted to remedy the situation is senior management?

You go straight to the Board of Directors.

[...]

Dear Publisher Inskeep, President Lord, Publisher Mitchell, Publisher Rust, CEO Singleton, and President Smith:

I write to you today as members of the Board of Directors for the Associated Press, asking you to write a wrong that Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll has steadfastly refused to address, even after being confronted with the evidence.

On November 24, 2006, a series of stories was published by the Associated Press concerning a series of Shia militia attacks upon Sunni mosques in the Hurriyah neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq. Two these reports have been attached as PDFs, as they were published by Gainesville.com and the Jerusalem Post (gainesville11_25_26.pdf and jeruslampost11_24_06.pdf, respectively).

[...]

The problem I've written to you to address, as the Board of Directors of the Associated Press, is that every single claim listed above is highly questionable; some have been proven to be exaggerated with photographic and videotaped evidence, and it is quite likely that some of the claims were fabricated entirely.

Once you read the evidence compiled below, I hope that you will consider having the Associated Press run an article correcting the mismanaged Hurriyah coverage issued so far, and perhaps several other issues as well. ...

***

Jules liked it too.

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 26, 2007 at 08:23 PM in Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Jamilgate, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 23 January 2007
 

Part 43 of a series. Continued from this post.

CRACKDOWN: Iraqi PM Locks Down Official
Media Access to Key Government Ministries
Confederate Yankee. Hat tip: Bryan Preston

An anonymous source from within Baghdad's Green Zone has provided me with a copy of a document issued from the office of Iraqi Prime Minster Nouri Al-Malki, ordering the shutdown of contacts with the world press on "any topics that relate to security issues."

The document was directed to "the official speakers or the media advisors" within the Iraqi Interior and Defense Ministries.

No context was provided.

This will likely mean an increased reliance upon anonymous sources in regards to security-related news coming out of Iraq.

This is not a good development for transparent government nor for Iraqi democracy. ...

***

Meanwhile, E&P's all over the story.

***

Yep, jumpin' right on it. (H/T: Michelle)

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 23, 2007 at 02:56 PM in Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Jamilgate, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 21 January 2007
 

Jamilgate: U.S. officers tell Michelle Malkin
“burning six” incident didn’t happen

Part 42 of a series. Continued from this post.

Lt. Col. Steven Miska, commander of the Dagger Brigade at Forward Operating Base Justice, observed: "Part of it is, if you're relying on Iraqi reporters, well, what are their biases? What clans are they from and tribes? Why are they telling me this? What's his underlying motivation? And if you quote a police chief, well, those guys have underlying motivations, too . . ."

"I've gone out and found police chiefs on the street and said, 'What happened here?' Something just blew up and he told me, 'Well, U.S. airplanes just bombed this building.'

"I said, 'What are you talking about? It was freakin' insurgent rockets that just hit the building, I picked them up on radar.' " But he just told the reporter on the street that U.S. warplanes bombed the building and killed 13 people. 

I picked a bad day to sleep in. Rather than try to pull longer excerpts and tempt you not to read all of what Michelle wrote I'm going to settle for saying make sure you read her entire Post column here and her longer blog post, complete with pictures of the "destroyed" mosques, here. Hat tip: Allahpundit.

***

Hussein of Cards
Confederate Yankee

I've continued to do some digging into one of the stories sourced to Jamil (not really) Hussein, the alleged assassination of Iraqi Police Captain Amir Kamil on June 20, 2006.

According to AP:

Elsewhere in the capital, police Capt. Amir Kamil, who provided security for Yarmouk hospital, was shot to death Tuesday at a bus station, Capt. Jamil Hussein said.

Unlike most of Hussein's rather vague claims, this one provided specific detail I could attempt to follow up on. We know the name of the victim, who he worked for, where he worked, and at what rank, and even know how and where (in general terms) he was killed.

Unlike all of AP's other stories sourced to Jamil Hussein (including the Hurriyah attacks), this story even has a picture associated with it.

[image]

A caption provided with the picture in a sidebar here reads:

Two friends of police Capt. Amir Kamil comfort each other at al-Yarmouk hospital after he was shot...

It seems like this story could be easily verified, doesn't it? Alas, that is not the case. As I noted previously, I was unable to find any English-language stories from other news agencies corroborating the AP's claim of Captain Kamil's assassination. A reader with Lexis-Nexis access reported the same. ...

***

Don't miss Curt's excellent related post here.

Patterico's post here is also well worth your while.

***

Captain Ed: Baghdad Mosques Still Standing

***

Jules C: Keep the Hussein Fires Burning

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 21, 2007 at 02:19 PM in Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Jamilgate, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 20 January 2007
 

Dodging behind a stonewall

Part 41 of a series. Continued from this post.

AP: The Art of the Dodge
Confederate Yankee

Almost two months after the Associated Press ran the story that six Sunnis were pulled from a mosque in the Baghdad neighborhood of Hurriyah, doused in kerosene and set ablaze, the Associated Press continues to dodge a series of very simple questions surrounding their alleged deaths, and the deaths of 18 other Sunnis their reports claim were murdered.

Four days ago, I sent a simple series of direct questions to Linda M. Wagner, Director of Media Relations and Public Affairs for the Associated Press.

[...]

Late Friday afternoon, Wagner finally offered a response... just no direct answers to any of my questions:

[...]

Despite providing some interesting reading, Wagner still avoided answering the questions I asked.

Stripped of the background information, I asked Wagner a total of 10 questions: ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 20, 2007 at 03:16 AM in Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Jamilgate, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 18 January 2007
 

Here a Jamil, there a Jamil, everywhere a Jamilmil

Part 40 of a series. Continued from this post.

Special on Jamil Husseins
Jules Crittenden

AP: I say, my good man, I’d like to see something in a Jamil Hussein.

Babu: Yes sahib, if you look here, you will see I have many Jamil Husseins. These three are Palestinian. Only the finest Jamil Husseins in my shop.

AP: No, that won’t do. I require an Iraqi Jamil Hussein. A police captain, if you will.

Babu: Oh no sir, no Iraqi  police captain Jamil Husseins. ...

***

My Three Jamils
Confederate Yankee

Right idea, wrong Jamil(s). Well, maybe not.

Jamil Hussein—all three of them—have been arrested in the West Bank:

In the town of 'Azzoun, Israeli forces arrested three brothers: Mahmoud Mohammed Jamil Hussein, Bilal Mohammed Jamil Hussein and Maher Mohammed Jamil Hussein.

Palestinian security sources report that Israeli forces have intensified its military operations in the city of Qalqilia in recent times. The number of military operations has risen and the number of political prisoners from Qalqilia in Israeli prisons is currently around 600.

Up to 150 of them are Jamil Hussein... actually, I'm just making that part up.

That said, if there were more of the Iraqi Jamil Hussein's—the guy we now know is actually Jamil Gulaim "XX" (not Hussein), despite AP protestations to the contrary followed by their sudden silence—it would go a long way towards describing how one of the Associated Press' most prolific sources could possibly be reporting from almost everywhere in Baghdad except his own location as shown in this map (red areas indicates Jamil XX's assigned neighborhoods, orange areas neighboring neighborhoods, and the red sunbursts indicating the location of the attacks he alleged occurred): ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 18, 2007 at 01:10 PM in Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Jamilgate, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 17 January 2007
 

Back from Baghdad // Assessing Iraq

***

It looks like this is going to turn into Part 39 of my Jamilgate series. Part 38 is here.

***

Back from Baghdad
Michelle Malkin

My HotAir.com colleague Bryan Preston and I are back from Iraq. Thanks to Allah and Ian for holding down the fort at HA and thanks much to guest-bloggers Mary Katharine Ham, See-Dubya, and the Big Lizards for filling in here during my absence. Be sure to bookmark their blogs.

Our first Hot Air in Baghdad video report is here.

Bryan's first post-trip essay, a thorough assessment of "mistakes, fumbles and ways forward to win--and what victory actually looks like," is here. He's also got video stills of our encounters with shady operators on both sides of the sectarian divide while on patrol with U.S. troops.

My syndicated column today provides an overview of the counterinsurgency efforts we witnessed first-hand--and I'm posting the column below, illustrated with photos I took throughout the trip.

We'll report on our investigation of the Associated Press's media malpractice in an upcoming New York Post exclusive.

And we'll both be publishing much more over the next several days,  ...

***

Assessing Iraq
Bryan Preston

Michelle and I spent four days patrolling the environs around Forward Operating Base Justice in north and west Baghdad last week. FOB Justice is near one functional neighborhood, Khadimiyah, one mostly recovered neighborhood, Al Salam, one dysfunctional neighborhood, Al Hurriyah, and an al Qaeda-influenced area the name of which I never learned.

FOB Justice sits in a mostly Shia area, but it is just across the Tigris from Adamiya, a Sunni area that produced pops of AK gunfire every night and, on a couple of occassions, we heard the sound of mortar fire coming from that direction. But the convoys we were on were never shot at, and our troops never fired a single shot, which by itself is significant considering the fact that we were in Baghdad and did drive and walk through some sketchy areas. Most people in the states don’t realize that most of Baghdad’s violence is confined to areas where Shia and Sunni mix. No one so much as threw a rock at us, and the troops were greeted in a friendly manner nearly everywhere they went. Only in Hurriyah did we see overt hostility, but it never went beyond the sly insult stage.

This isn’t to say that everyone in Iraq loves US troops or that FOB Justice’s area of operation is Disneyland. Troops from FOB Justice frequently run across Haifa Street (including the trip bringing us back from the International Zone, hours after a fierce fight had taken place there) and troops from Justice have unfortunately been killed in combat or by IEDs; last fall a colonel was killed by one of the sophisticated Iranian-made IEDs. IEDs are a constant threat across most of Iraq. We ran across Mahdi Army militia fighters a couple of times on one patrol (and I have video); their intent was to check up on the Americans while staying far enough away to avoid a clash.  ...

***

Jules links here. (Check out his new digs!)

***

Confederate Yankee has an excellent related post here, including some new questions for al-AP.

***

Curt takes note here.

***

Audio: Michelle talks Iraq with Laura Ingraham
Allahpundit

The first major media appearance by the boss today related to her trip.

Update: INDC Bill’s still on the ground in Fallujah and snapping pics aplenty. Here’s what remains of the “Valentine’s Day Massacre” in that city. You’ll have to follow the link for details.

[image]

Part 39 of a series. Part 40

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 17, 2007 at 06:02 AM in Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Jamilgate, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Monday, 15 January 2007
 

Audio: Captain Ed spars with NPR over Jamilgate

Part 38 of a series. Continued from this post.

NPR Interview On Media Credibility
Ed Morrissey

Last week, NPR invited me to do an interview with On The Media co-host Brooke Gladstone, for what was supposed to be a five-minute segment. Brooke and I ended up sparring for thirty minutes in a spirited debate, which I think we both enjoyed. NPR had to cut it down to five minutes, and I believe they did a good job in capturing the essence of both perspectives:

[audio link]

Granted, a lot of the conversation from both of us got cut out. The only point I wish they would have left in the mix, but which took too long for the segment length, was my specific objection to using a single source for such explosive stories without even asking their clients in Iraq to confirm them. The burning mosque story only had the one source, Jamil Hussein, and the AP's other clients in Iraq never heard anything about this story. I also pointed out that the AP broke its own rules by not noting the use of a pseudonym for their source, and that the use of single-sourced material in a war zone is an open invitation to manipulation by propagandists.

Hat tip: Allahpundit, who comments here.

***

Confederate Yankee: Jamilgate Hits the Airwaves

***

Was the AP Getting Played By Jamil Hussein? 
Gateway Pundit

... Tonight, I get this followup from Iraqi-American Haider Ajina:

Greetings Jim,

I first read that Jamil's last name or middle name (this is usually his fathers name for family identification Jamil son of Gulaim then the last name etc..) and started laughing. It is almost like one of those joke names.

Gulaim or Gulam are names, which were given to boy slaves or boys born into slavery often if not always black boys. This of course does not exist any more. The names literally mean boy Gulaim means ‘cute little boy’ sort of like putting the 'ita' at the end of a word in Spanish like 'Senorita'. Later until the fifties the name was often used for boy servants often orphans…

This makes it an even more peculiar name. Still possible. His father names his son Jamil, Thus Jamil Gulam means "Pretty Boy".

Now unless it is a family tradition, I would never do that to any of my Sons.

It could be that an Iraqi is playing a huge joke on AP.

***

The Media Misinformation War
Posted by Curt

Bookworm links to an excellent article which describes just one of the reasons why the media's insistence on using stringers for stories is a huge mistake:

January 15, 2007 -- JUST outside Um al-Qasar, a port in south east Iraq, a crowd had gathered around a British armored car with a crew of four. An argument seemed to be heating up through an interpreter.

The interpreter told the Brits that the crowd was angry and wanted U.K. forces out of Iraq. But then a Kuwaiti representative of Amnesty International, accompanied by a journalist friend, approached - and found the crowd to be concerned about something quite different.

The real dispute? The day before, a British armored vehicle had an accident with a local taxi; now the cab's owner, backed by a few friends, was asking the Brits to speed up compensating him. Did these Iraqis want the Brits to leave, as the interpreter pretended? No, they shouted, a thousand times no!

So why did the interpreter inject that idea into the dialogue? Shaken, he tried a number of evasions: Well, had the Brits not been in Iraq, there wouldn't have been an accident in the first place. And, in any case, he knows that most Iraqis don't want foreign troops.

The author goes on to detail the fact that interpreting has become a cottage industry in Iraq with many of the interpreters being former Saddam loyalists.

One of the more important aspects to the article is how the author, a Iranian named Amir Taheri, describes the bias in our MSM: ...

***

The Liberal Groupthink Inside Our MSM
Posted by Curt

Another day, another chance for the liberal groupthink inside our MSM to expose themselves.  Check out this article: (h/t Instapundit)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - When it comes to squandering the earth's natural resources, residents of this desert land of chilled swimming pools, monster 4x4s and air-conditioned malls are on a par with even the ravenous consumption of Americans, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

The average person in the Emirates puts more demand on the global ecosystem than any other, giving the country the world's largest per-capita "ecological footprint," WWF data shows. The United States runs second.

But the oil-rich Emirates is considered a developing country, and even as a signatory to the United Nations'Kyoto protocol on global warming, is not required to cut emissions. The United States is no longer bound by Kyoto, which the Bush administration rejected after taking office in 2001.

Only problem is that the protocol was rejected in 1997 during Clinton's reign: ...

***

Ed Morrissey comments on the Kyoto story here.

Part 38 of a series. Part 39

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 15, 2007 at 01:41 PM in Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Jamilgate, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 13 January 2007
 

Part 37 of a series. Continued from this post.

Jamil, We Hardly Knew Ye
Dafydd ab Hugh

Patterico says he "just doesn't get it," referring to AP's ever taller tale of Jamil Hussein Ghdaab Gulaim Ghdaab Redacted.

Specifically, he objects to the conclusion that AP knew "Jamil Hussein" was a pseudonym:

UPDATE: Let me make clear what I’m confused about. Everyone is running around screeching that the AP knowingly used a pseudonym.

What is the proof?

The problem is that Patterico -- being a first-rate trial lawyer (prosecutor) -- tends to think like a lawyer... which is extremely useful in his chosen profession (and is probably one reason why he chose that profession in the first place), but which can lead to unnecessary demands. Specifically, I believe Patterico is waiting for actual evidence -- some AP reporter testifying that they knew it was a nom de guerre -- that will never materialize, for obvious reasons. In this case, we can get farther by just being logical about the question.

What are the possible cases? ...

***

The Latest & Greatest On Jamil Hussein
Posted by Curt

I decided to step away a bit, but not completely, on the Jamil Hussein story and get back to the crux of the story.  The whole thing has become convoluted and twisted to the point where people are not sure which way is up so I figured a little history on the story would be worth my time to convey with some additional commentary.

If you read through all of my posts on this subject from the beginning you will find that I named my original posts "Getting The News From The Enemy".  I named them that because THAT was the crux of the story.  I put in a lot of work to show that much of what was being reported by the AP should be questioned and appeared to come from stringers.  When I focused on Jamil and my suspicions turned out to be justified the blogosphere went bananas.  But in so doing everyone, including myself, focused on one man, one source, as the crux of the story.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

The story begins with the Burning Six incident and the lack of any evidence to suggest that this event ever happened. ...

Read the whole thing, folks. It's long but it's an excellent summary of the history of Jamilgate.

***

Scott Johnson has a lengthy and worthy related piece here.

Part 37 of a series. Part 38

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 13, 2007 at 02:37 AM in Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Jamilgate, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 11 January 2007
 

Proven: "Jamil Hussein" does not exist! (Updated, bumped)

Part 36 of a series. Continued from this post.

J-DAMN
Confederate Yankee

And so a major Associated Press claim in "Jamilgate" takes an apparently fatal hit.

According to Bill Costlow of CPATT (Civilian Police Assistance Training Team) in Baghdad, and as forwarded by Lt. Michael Dean of Multinational Corps-Iraq/Joint Operations Command Public Affairs, our now infamous police captain in Iraq appears to be definitively not Jamil Hussein.

Nor is his name Jamil Gholaiem Hussein as stated repeatedly by the Associated Press Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll and other Associated Press employees.

Nor is his name Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim, as he has been called previously in other accounts. According to his personnel records at MOI, confirmed with BG Abdul-Kareem and then reportedly verified by BG Abdul-Karim Khalaf with AP's Baghdad sources, his name is actually Jamil Gulaim "XX".

The "XX" protects his second middle name and real last names, of which "Hussein" is not a part.

To sum up the current situation as things now appear to stand:

• There is no Baghdad police officer at the Khadra police station named Captain Jamil Hussein, and never has been. Jamil Hussein, and Jamil Gholaiem Hussein are pseudonyms for Jamil Gulaim Innad "X".
• The Associated Press published a pseudonym without acknowledging that fact, apparently knowing, if BG Abdul-Kareem is correct, that they were publishing a false identity. Is that a big deal? HUGE. This is a major breach of journalistic ethics.
• ...

***

The Latest On Jamil Hussein
Posted by Curt

... UPDATE III

Bill Costlow has just confirmed that Jamil does not have Hussein in his name, and he has also confirmed that the MoI spokesperson DID speak to the AP and confirmed that he was their source:

His personnel record says his name is: Jamil Gulaim xxxx xxxxx

Spokesman BG Abdul-Kareem has spoken with members of the AP in Baghdad and has confirmation that he is their source.  That said, CPT Jamil still denies ever speaking to them.

As far as the MOI is concerned, CPT Jamil gave the AP bad information: there's still no evidence the six murders occurred.

So there you are.  I have responded back to Bill with the question how the BG can confirm that he is the source if he denied being the source? 

That being said, the AP used a pseudonym for Jamil without acknowledging that fact.   Confederate Yankee did an interview with five bigwigs in the world of journalism asking about the use of pseudonym's in reports and got the following: ...

***

See also:

• Allahpundit: Jamilgate non-bombshell: AP allegedly used pseudonym

• Patterico: A Cautionary Note on Jamil Hussein and the Burning Six Story

• Don Surber: AP blew it 

*** Update and bump. Original timestamp 11:34

AP: Discrediting Jamil's Sources
Confederate Yankee

A wise and well-traveled journalist spoke with me via email yesterday regarding the stupidity of mistakes made by the large and the arrogant Goliaths of our world:

...One thing they ALWAYS do, in my experience, is make MAJOR mistakes in the very beginning. Mistakes that are so major that people say, "Nope, that can't be true. They never would do something that stupid." But they do. And then the big people usually rely on intimidation...and if that doesn't work (and it's not with you on this), those initial huge errors they make become HUGE and inescapable...

And so back to the beginning I went, and indeed, the Associated Press seems to have done an excellent job of discrediting Jamil Huss—excuse me, "Jamil XX" on their own. How much did they discredit him?

To the point most rational people would question why he was ever allowed to continue as an Associated Press source at all.

* * *

Do you remember this JunkYardBlog post, where See Dubya marveled at the ability of Captain Jamil XX to be report incidents of violence from literally all over Baghdad?

See Dubya noted: ...

Read the whole thing.

***

Patterico: The Latest on Jamil Redacted: Sorry, I Don’t Get It

***

Tony Snow: “I’m looking forward to meeting Capt. Jamil Hussein”

***

Confederate Yankee: Does Tony Snow Read CY?

Part 36 of a series. Part 37

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 11, 2007 at 09:29 PM in Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Jamilgate, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 10 January 2007
 

Lt. Kije identified, facing arrest? -- Day 7

Part 35 of a series. Continued from this post. 

Nothing new to report at the moment, although a friend's cousin's friend is absolutely certain she saw Jamil having a drink with Elvis in a little bar just off the Vegas strip yesterday. Updates as I have them.

***

Flopping Aces’ “Latest on Jamil Hussein”
— Another Possible Interpretation
Patterico

Curt at Flopping Aces has a post that he says is The Latest on Jamil Hussein. Curt says he has been in touch with Bill Costlow, the CPATT (Civilian Police Assistance Training Team) representative. According to Curt:

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.

From this, Curt concludes:

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.

Then, the AP’s source denies he is the source.

Color me dubious. Curt seems to be leaping straight to the conclusion that, if Costlow is right, the AP has misreported what it was told by Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the MOI spokesman. But there’s another possibility, that Curt would do well to keep in mind:  ...

Read on. You know the suspense is killin' you.

***

The Jamil Hussein Controversy, Explained
Patterico

Shorter left-wingers:

Conservative “warbloggers” are “teh stupid” (as the kids say nowadays) because they unquestioningly accepted a statement made by a spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior.

How do we know the warbloggers got their facts wrong? Well, you see, according to a statement made by a spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior . . .

Parallels bolded for the benefit of the dimmer lefties who might not get it otherwise. ...

I got corn-fused and added a couple of things to this post that I thought I was putting in this one. I've moved them.

Part 35 of a series. Part 36

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 10, 2007 at 01:02 AM in Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Jamilgate, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 09 January 2007
 

Lt. Kije identified, facing arrest? -- Day 6

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: ...

***

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. ...

***

Gateway Pundit has more here.

***

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

***

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? ...

*** 

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 ...

***

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. ...

***

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. ...

***

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

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 9, 2007 at 02:45 PM in Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Jamilgate, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 08 January 2007
 

Lt. Kije identified, facing arrest? -- Day 5

Part 33 of a series. Continued from this post.

So Where IS Lieutenant Kije?
Hatched by Dafydd

At long last, after weeks of fumfahing around, the Associated Press has labored and labored and finally given birth -- to a mouse.

They managed to cajole a spokesman of the Iraq Ministry of the Interior (MOI), Brigadier Abdul-Karim Khalaf (who has also been quoted on Reuters, albeit in other contexts -- so I'm willing to accept that he, at least, exists) into admitting the existence of a Police Captain Jamil Hussein -- actually Jamil Gholaiem (or Ghlaim) Hussein -- working at the Khadra police station. So here is at least a candidate for Baghdad's own Lt. Kije! ...

I may be the last skeptic standing; but I must point out, in a loud and clear voice, that we still have no independent verification that the Jamil Hussein reportedly found by the MOI is the same Jamil Hussein repeatedly interviewed by AP. We have only AP's word for it -- and a denial by Lt. Kije himself. At the moment, the identified Jamil Ghlaim (or Gholaiem) Hussein remains as elusive as Elwood P. Dowd's 8-foot tall invisible rabbit, Harvey. (Is Jamil a Pookah?) ...

Do read the whole thing, and do not miss the big announcement here.

***

Dafydd's first two mm.com posts are up here and here.

***

Monday Morning Jamil Roundup
Confederate Yankee

While I've been busy over the weekend doing family stuff, other bloggers have kept up the pressure on the continuing on-going scandal called Jamilgate, where the Associated Press claimed that 24 people were burned to death and four mosques were rocketed, machine gunned, burned and blown up along with several homes burned in a Baghdad neighborhood on Friday, November 24, 2006.

The AP has since attempted to rewrite their story after the fact, now only maintaining that six people were immolated and that only one mosque was attacked. Though the claims made in the story have been changed by roughly 75-percent, one of their primary sources is facing arrest, another retracted his claim, and another key source was a group aligned with al Qaeda, the AP's executive editor Kathleen Carroll continues to prove she is the Mike Nifong of professional journalism.

Carroll says she stand by AP's reporting on this story, even as her reporters have dramatically changed it over time. ...

Part 33 of a series. Part 34

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 8, 2007 at 12:06 AM in Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Jamilgate, Media Malpractice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack