Posted on 11/27/2006 3:41:07 PM PST by lowbridge
Posted by Greg Sheffield on November 27, 2006 - 13:25.
The news that six Sunnis were captured by Shiites, doused with kerosine and burned alive, was too sensational to not be picked up by the mainstream media. But it turns out that the event never happened. Furthermore, the Iraqi "spokesman" relied on to give all information regarding this event is as fictional as the story itself.
Jamil Hussein, the man news reports called "police Capt. Jamil Hussein," was the source for all information regarding the burning. Although he is mentioned by USA Today, the Associated Press, CBS News, and other outlets, Central Command says no such person exists. Centcom also asked the Associated Press to retract the story unless it has proof beyond Jamil Hussein's word.
Flopping Aces has a press release from Centcom, which is in charge of all U.S. forces in the Middle East.
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Dear Associated Press:
On Nov. 24, 2006, your organization published an article by Qais Al-Bashir about six Sunnis being burned alive in the presence of Iraqi Police officers. This news item, which is below, received an enormous amount of coverage internationally.
We at Multi-National Corps - Iraq made it known through MNC-I Press Release Number 20061125-09 and our conversations with your reporters that neither we nor Baghdad Police had any reports of such an incident after investigating it and could find no one to corroborate the story. A couple of hours ago, we learned something else very important. We can tell you definitively that the primary source of this story, police Capt. Jamil Hussein, is not a Baghdad police officer or an MOI employee. We verified this fact with the MOI through the Coalition Police Assistance Training Team.
Also, we definitely know, as we told you several weeks ago through the MNC-I Media Relations cell, that another AP-popular IP spokesman, Lt. Maithem Abdul Razzaq, supposedly of the city’s Yarmouk police station, does not work at that police station and is also not authorized to speak on behalf of the IP. The MOI has supposedly issued a warrant for his questioning.
I know we have informed you that there exists an MOI edict that no one below the level of chief is authorized to be an Iraqi Police spokesperson. An unauthorized IP spokesperson will get fired for talking to the media. While I understand the importance of a news agency to use anonymous and unauthorized sources, it is still incumbent upon them to make sure their facts are straight. Was this information verified by anyone else? If the source providing the information is lying about his name, then he ought not to be represented as an official IP spokesperson and should be listed as an anonymous source.
Unless you have a credible source to corroborate the story of the people being burned alive, we respectfully request that AP issue a retraction, or a correction at a minimum, acknowledging that the source named in the story is not who he claimed he was. MNC-I and MNF-I are always available and willing to verify events and provide as much information as possible when asked.
Very respectfully,
LT XXXXXXXXXX X XXXXXXXX
Lieutenant, U.S. Navy
MNC-I Joint Operations Center
Public Affairs Officer
"I'm not sure what you're talking about in your last post, but obviously the identity of ALL police officers used as sources for news reports must be verified first with Centcom."
I don't know if you did this deliberately to try to change the meaning of my sentence, but that was the result. In the future, please be careful not to quote sentence fragements from people in a way that changes the meaning of what they said. Now have a nice day. I don't have time to deal with you either.
Bye-bye!
AP calls Centcom accusation “ludicrous,” stands by its storyposted at 6:39 pm on November 28, 2006 by Allahpundit
The boss has details. Yes, they claim, there is in fact a person named Jamil Hussein — Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, to be precise — and yes, he’s a bona fide Iraqi police officer based at the station in Yarmouk. And for Centcom to suggest otherwise smells like a hamhanded attempt to discredit a story that makes things in Iraq look worse than the military would prefer them to look.
They’ve also filed a new story about the incident replete with what they claim are independent corroborating accounts from eyewitnesses:
Two of the witnesses — a 45-year-old bookshop owner and a 48-year-old neighborhood grocery owner — gave nearly identical accounts of what happened. A third, a physician, said he saw the attack on the mosque from his home, saw it burning and heard people in the streets screaming that people had been set on fire. All three men are Sunni Muslims.
The two other witnesses said the mosque assault began in earnest about 2:30 p.m. after the arrival of the four vehicles filled with arms. They said the attackers fired into the mosque, then entered and set it on fire.
Then, the witnesses said, the attackers brought out six men, blindfolded and handcuffed, and lined them up on the street at the gate of the mosque. The witnesses said the six were doused with kerosene from a 1.3-gallon canister and set on fire at intervals, one after the other, with a torch made of rags. The fifth and sixth men in the line were set afire at the same time.
The witnesses said the burning victims rolled on the ground in agony until apparently dead, then the gunmen fired a single bullet into each of their heads…
One witness said he and other people from the neighborhood took the six immolation victims to the Sunni cemetery near Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib suburb and buried them after the gunbattle. That witness said one of the victims was the Mustafa mosque muezzin or prayer caller, Ahmed al-Mashadani. He did not know the names of the five others, but said they were all members of the al-Mashadani tribe.
It’d be easy to verify this if there was no Islamic taboo about disinterment. As it is, Centcom had better check the cop and figure out who he is and why he wasn’t on the rolls of Iraqi MOI pronto. If he’s a legitimate police officer and they have no record of him, it’d be hugely embarrassing. And not just because of what it means for this story.
http://hotair.com/archives/2006/11/28/ap-calls-centcom-accusation-ludicrous-stands-by-its-story/
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006439.htm
We're getting off on a tangent here. The only report we have of Hussein's identity not being verified by CENTCOM is from that unsigned letter purporting to be from CENTCOM. The only thing I've seen resembling a sourced comment from them is that the bureaucratic construct in the country makes it impossible for them to determine the guy's legitimacy.
For some reason, there's a lot of folks taking that unsigned letter as the gospel, while rejecting the more limited public comments that we can verify are legitimate. If we're going to get to the truth of this thing, we ought to at least start out with a common understanding of what is and is not verified by a legitimate CENTCOM source. To me, an unsigned letter isn't a legit source.
Latest
Burning Sunnis, burning mosques, burning questions
By Michelle Malkin · November 29, 2006 02:00 PM
My column and Vent today cover the Associated Press controversy over the six-burned-alive-Sunnis story. Shortly after I filed and taped, the AP released its statement (which I finally received this morning after my Gmail problems) and a new story on the incident, which I noted last night. For one Huffington Post blogger, the matter is settled and he's demanding an apology.
Yeah, well, the matter is far from settled.
LGF reports this morning:
LGF reader Glen K. forwarded an email he received from CENTCOM today, indicating that the Iraqis are planning a rebuttal to the continuing AP claims about Jamil Hussein:
From: MNC-I PAO Victory Main JOC
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 9:14 AM
To: [deleted]
Cc: MNC-I PAO Victory Main JOC
Subject: RE: [U] RE: Could you confirm that the letter below was sent by CENTCOM
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Sir:
I have just learned from Mr. Costlow, mentioned below, that Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the official Ministry of Interior spokesmen, will begin his regularly scheduled press conference at noon tomorrow with a statement that Capt. Jamil Hussein, is not a Baghdad police officer or an MOI employee.
Yesterday, coincidently, the Iraqi Ministry of Interior issued a press release warning of spreading propaganda aimed at broadcasters. The text of this statement follows:
A Statement from the Ministry of Interior
After media became free in Iraq and expressed the will of all without the government interfering, unfortunately, some satellite TV channels began misleading public opinion and disclosing chaos for a particular political agenda, by broadcasting propaganda that harms people and tries to shake the trust in security forces.
Such satellite channels are trying to affect Iraqi unity and claim that information was stated by a security source without mentioning the source. Information sources should be well-known and reliable, and to avoid repeating such unfair actions, MOI warns the media and insists on defending the people’s security and safety. MOI will take all immediate preventive procedures against media that broadcast propaganda, because such media intend to repress the will of Iraqis in fighting terror and crime.
We would like to mention that such procedures we do not consider as chaining true free media, but it is a legal defense for Iraqi security and the safety of our people.
If you have any additional questions, please let us know.
Vr,
LT Dean
Michael B. Dean
Lieutenant, U.S. Navy
MNC-I Joint Operations Center
Public Affairs Officer
Austin Bay probes "Captain Jamil Hussein" further.
Curt at Flopping Aces and Dan Riehl dissect the new AP story.
And Jim Hoft reports that the imam at the mosque in question where the "6 Sunni torchings" supposedly took place is accused of being a member of Saddam's secret police by his own congregation.
Jim also reminds us of the AP's false reporting about the "torched" mosques...that weren't.
For those who are all too familiar with the Theater of Jihad, the AP's new story raises more questions than it answers. To sum up so far:
Two unnamed Associated Press reporters get new acounts from three unnamed witnesses (who, of course, refuse to be identified by name--although the AP has no problem describing some weirdly specific details about their ages, occupations, ethnicity, and religions) about six burned-alive Sunnis, five of whom no one can name and whose bodies can't be disinterred in an investigation because it would violate Islamic law. And of the two original sources who claim the incident happened, one has recanted and the other is someone whom the military and Iraqi officials maintain is not who he says he is.
Next move: CENTCOM's.
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006448.htm
On the net regarding the Iraqi interior ministry:
Reining in the Sadrist movement – one of the groups in a Shia coalition that brought Mr Maliki to power but whose affiliated militia is accused of involvement in violence against Sunni Arabs – has been a long-standing US demand.
The suspension of official participation by the five Sadrist ministers and 30 lawmakers may not have lasting impact but it piles up the pressure on Mr Maliki. The group issued a statement saying the Bush-Maliki summit would be "provocation to the feelings of the Iraqi people and a violation of their constitutional rights".
Iraqi officials say Mr Maliki is looking for an accelerated handover of security to Iraqis and a discussion about an agreement to regulate the presence of the 160,000-strong multinational forces, whose mandate was extended for one year on Tuesday by the UN Security Council.
US officials on Wednesday played down suggestions of US displeasure with Mr Maliki, insisting that Mr Bush was convinced of the Iraqi prime minister's "good intentions" and would on Thursday discuss how to turn these intentions into concrete action.
A senior official said the administration was working with Mr Maliki to "improve" his capabilities, praising the Iraqi leader for taking on some of the key challenges, including making changes at an interior ministry that has been infiltrated by Shia militias. http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=FT&Date=20061129&ID=6235055
In other words they went to the same bogus "source" and he said yep I confirm it and they run it as true.
Nice going AP!
I would like to report that it was a man with green hair that broke the copier.
Second source?
Well I just talked to me again. Yes, I confirm what I said before.
Keep reading you are only at post #135.
I have just learned from Mr. Costlow, mentioned below, that Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the official Ministry of Interior spokesmen, will begin his regularly scheduled press conference at noon tomorrow with a statement that Capt. Jamil Hussein, is not a Baghdad police officer or an MOI employee.
Case closed.
The AP did exactly what I said they did. Rather then trying to find a second source they go back to the same guy and he repeats the store and they trumpet that the "Story" in their "newspaper" "written" by their "reporter" is true.
As I have witnessed the AP lying through their fangs about other events overseas this is just another in a long line of bull crap shoveled by them.
A senior official said the administration was working with Mr Maliki to "improve" his capabilities, praising the Iraqi leader for taking on some of the key challenges, including making changes at an interior ministry that has been infiltrated by Shia militias.
IMHO the Iraqi Ministry of Interior is the one that should be focused in on and investigated.
Has nothing to do with the fact the AP ran a bogus story.
That is yet to be proven.
The AP is know to lie.
The AP alleged something.
Theirs is the responsibility to prove what they said was real or at the very least that their source exists.
They have not done so.
Story is bogus until proven otherwise.
Big surprise. And I bet there's not going to be a peep from their boss. Heck, they'll probably get a promotion for being so bold as to outright and blatantly lie (normally they just misreport).
.
The latest:
I've been following up with CENTCOM on the Associated Press/sketchy sources brouhaha. Just heard this morning from Michael B. Dean, Lieutenant, U.S. Navy MNC-I Joint Operations Center, Public Affairs Officer:
From CPATT PAO:
BG Abdul-Kareem, the Ministry of Interior Spokesman, went on the record today stating that Capt. Jamil Hussein is not a police officer. He explained the coordinations among MOI, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Defense in attempting to track down these bodies and their joint conclusion was that this was unsubstantiated rumor.
He went on to name several other false sources that have been used recently and appealed to the media to document their news before reporting. He went into some detail about the impact of the press carrying propaganda for the enemies of Iraq and thanked "the friends" who have brought this to their attention.
AP did attend the press conference.
I asked for more details, and Lt. Dean provided a summary and the first half of the press conference transcript. Some other interesting info here in addition to the false sources comments:
Ministry of Interior Weekly Press Conference Thursday, November 30, 2006
By Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf Al-Kenani
Ministry of Interior spokesman
Press conference synopsis:
1. Media, especially satellite news channels, must adhere to
responsible practices:
a. MOI is monitoring coverage, and will insist on corrections to
false reports.
b. Unnamed sources should not be used. Two recently named sources
do not work for MOI. Contact MOI PAO for official information.
c. Rumors are rampant, and media should be careful to check with
official sources about information to avoid spreading false rumors.
2. MOI succeeded in a number of operations against terrorists in
Baghdad.
a. The Baghdad Sniper was apprehended, and information gained from
him led to the arrest of 30 others in his organization.
b. Two unauthorized "courts" that had issued death fatwas were
broken up.
c. A kidnapping cell, including one that raped a young girl, was
arrested.
Statement:
This press conference will cover MOI operations from Nov. 23 to 29, 2006.
Before we start the weekly briefing, I have some points to highlight and to remind the brothers that work in the media, especially the Satellite television Channels. We meant by this note to stress the ministry of interior's intention that we believe in free press and truthful press, in order not to confuse what the free press presents and the misleading media show, where the latter's intention is to make the situation in Iraq worse than what it is.
The press release issued by the ministry of interior has three main points: First, a warning to the satellite TV. Channels continue broadcasting false news, and based on that we have formed a special observation room to monitor these TV stations; the purpose of this unit is to determine the fabricated and false news that hurts and gives the Iraqis a wrong picture that the security situation is very bad, when the facts are totally different.
After the monitoring process, we will contact those TV stations by presenting them with the mistakes and errors they committed by broadcasting such false news, hoping they will correct these false reports on their main news programs. But if they do not change those lying, false stories, then we will seek legal action against them.
For example, we have some of the respected news outlets that deal with news fast and have a relation with many TV channels and the media in general, who distributed a story quoting a person called Jamil Hussein. Afterward, we searched our sources in our staff for anyone by this name-- maybe he wore an MOI uniform and gave a different name to the reporter for money. And the second name used is Lt. Maythem.
However, all of you know that the ministry of interior has a large public affairs office and its official spokesman, and we are ready to answer any questions you may have. Therefore, you should contact MOI PAO for all your needs to get real, true news. Based on that, we strongly deny any relation with those two names. In order to serve you better and strengthen the relationship with MOI, do not take statements that have no meaning and do not represent any official. We would like this note to be helpful to you and any statement made by those persons to be ignored.
The second subject is rumors. The ministry received in a week more than 12 cases of claims, one stating 50 killed were there, 200 kidnapped here, 30 corpses found there etc. And when we dispatched our forces and investigators to the locations, we found nothing.
On this note, I would like to thank some of the brothers in the media who are cautious and take the extra step to make sure the news he gets is correct or not, by contacting the ministry to verify any news through us that they hear or receive. Not only (do we reply), but we also give them more detail than they expected, and we hope others will follow suit. Also, we ask our people, please do not take any news or give it credibility, except from a well-known source with a name and an address that is part of the security ministries, etc., such as a minister or police station commander. Or if it is from the MOD or MOI, the name of the officer, his rank, his unit, etc. It is not enough to say "a source from the ministry of interior."
Doing otherwise, you will end up helping the spread of the rumors and make them reality, even thought it was a false rumor. This rumor business -- if a large issue, it will take a long time to cover it, but the purpose of the rumors is to disrupt life and make the security apparatus busy with other things than its main tasks. We will end up following rumors instead of hunting terrorists and criminals.
The third subject is, this week the strikes we made against the al-Qaeda terrorist organization in Baghdad were many and very strong in Baghdad. Before my arrival to this press conference, I was informed that one of the three who were just captured or detained is Mazer Al-Jubouri, aka the Baghdad Sniper, and his group. He admitted many things that are very important and very dangerous and our forces used this information about his network and conducted raids in the past 24 hours and detained 30 terrorists.
Those terrorists executed several explosions in Palestine and Beirut streets, and the New Baghdad area. He also admitted that their base is in Diyala province, which supplied them with money, weapons and explosives. They are now under investigation and we think this cell or network has been dismantled.
This week also, we dismantled what are called "courts" in northern and southern Baghdad, and detained the two persons who issued fatwas to kill the people. Our force dismantled what is called the Omar network, this criminal network that used to exercise its criminal activities in southern Baghdad. And they admitted many things about other terrorist networks and our forces are pursuing them now, as well as other networks for kidnapping.
One of them, we regret, kidnapped a girl and used narcotics on her and raped this little innocent young girl. We captured those criminals and the little girl is receiving medical attention. This is not Iraqis' culture. Just look how far down in debasement they have traveled. With regret, I told you that, because MOI activity does not hold in the media the position it deserves, and also to show the great sacrifice by MOI this week.
http://michellemalkin.com/
It's always difficult to distinguish between mistranslations and typical Iraqi weasel-wording, but it appears to me that, while he denied any relation between the press office and Hussein, he didn't specifically deny that Hussein was a police officer.
As I say, maybe just the usual Iraqi style, but it could also be that it's an inexact statement for a reason. Since AP was there, their story on the press conference should be interesting. I still think it's interesting that the original AP story on the incident said the police stood by and did nothing, and this guy immediately appeared to blame it on the soldiers instead of the police.
Did you see this latest post #196, about the Burning bodies story??
Thursday, 30 November 2006 11 high level Ansar Al Sunna terrorists captured Thursday, 30 November 2006 28 bodies found south of Baqubah Thursday, 30 November 2006 MND-B Soldier Killed in Baghdad Thursday, 30 November 2006 Marines rescue hostage, uncover caches Thursday, 30 November 2006 Senior Coalition Commander in Diyala Province says Baqubah still functioning Thursday, 30 November 2006 CCCI convicts 41 insurgents
http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=1&id=4&Itemid=21
He went on to name several other false sources that have been used recently and appealed to the media to document their news before reporting. He went into some detail about the impact of the press carrying propaganda for the enemies of Iraq and thanked "the friends" who have brought this to their attention.
AP did attend the press conference.
Though I didn't know the AP didn't attend
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