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
Were you drinking when you wrote this last night?
Just curious.
Baghdad’s neighborhood: Hurriyah
Sgt. Corey Tucker, Company A, 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, Multi-National Division - Baghdad, pulls security near an alleyway during Operation Half Nelson. Soldiers worked with local Iraqis to gather information on terrorist activities in Baghdad’s Hurriyah neighborhood, Oct. 4, 2006. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Raul Montano
Soldiers of Company A, 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, Multi-National Division - Baghdad, clear a building during Operation Half Nelson. Soldiers worked with the Iraqi army and local citizens to gather information on terrorist activity in Baghdad’s Hurriyah neighborhood, Oct. 4, 2006. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Raul Montano
Spc. Patrick Drake, Company A, 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, of Multi-National Division - Baghdad, sweeps an area while looking for possible enemy threats during Operation Half Nelson. The operation gave soldiers an opportunity to interact with residents of Baghdad’s Hurriyah neighborhood and gather information of terrorist activity, Oct. 4, 2006. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Raul Montano
Soldiers of Multi-National Division - Baghdad use a working dog to detect explosives during Operation Half Nelson in Baghdad’s Hurriyah neighborhood, Oct. 4, 2006. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Raul Montano
Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, Multi-National Division - Baghdad, talk with residents of Baghdad’s Hurriyah neighborhood during Operation Half Nelson, Oct. 4, 2006. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Raul Montano
Staff Sgt. Timothy Bell, Company A, 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, Multi-National Division - Baghdad, talks with residents of Baghdad’s Hurriyah neighborhood during Operation Half Nelson, Oct. 4, 2006. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Raul Montano
U.S. takes on community building in Iraq
By LAUREN FRAYER, Associated Press Writer Sat Nov 11, 5:05 PM ET
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. soldiers, automatic rifles buckled to their body armor, filed into a community center in a dangerous Shiite neighborhood of north Baghdad Saturday and for a few hours became social workers, cops on the beat and referees between feuding tribesmen. Tea was passed around, notes were taken, local sheiks spoke in wise tones, heads nodded vigorously in agreement and mundane problems such as garbage collection and distributing electricity generators were tackled. Maj. Michael Fazio, 36, from Warwick, N.Y., pulled out a cheat sheet — photocopied snapshots labeled with long tribal names that he tried to match with faces in the room. "This is the battlefield of today," Fazio said, gesturing at the 200 or assembled — half of them civilians, the rest U.S. and Iraqi military. "At certain levels we didn't know what we were in for, but we have adapted in our goal of trying to hand over Iraq."
When U.S. troops stormed into Baghdad and ousted Saddam Hussein, few probably understood just how hard it would be to hand the city's security back to its inhabitants, who are in the midst of killing one another in a sectarian slaughter of massive proportions. Neighborhood council meetings such as the one in Hurriyah on Saturday were a fixture before and after Saddam, but the U.S. is increasingly looking to them as part of a strategy to encourage Iraqi self-governance and communication between warring sects. To stabilize Baghdad, U.S. soldiers find themselves involved in solving local problems.
"We live on an Iraqi FOB (forward operating base), and we regularly share tea with militia leaders. It's interesting, and it's important to maintain dialogue," said Lt. Col. Steve Miska, a 37-year-old Greenport, N.Y. native.
"Any day if we're shooting bullets, we're not winning. Money is more effective here, and the way to do that is dialogue. You need to bring Sunnis and Shiites to the table to get reconciliation," he said. Shiites have taken over Hurriyah, a formerly Sunni enclave where U.S. forces have seen increasingly sophisticated attacks. U.S. troops routinely patrol the neighborhood to try to control sectarian violence.
The neighborhood council meeting was four weeks in the making and progress toward healing the divides was halting. The session lasted 3 1/2 hours, sometimes disintegrating into shouting matches between neighbors or rants against U.S. raids in the neighborhood. "It's insulting when we have women asleep and American soldiers conduct raids in the middle of the night. We're a troubled community, and it isn't fair to break down doors at midnight. We need to draw lines," said Adnan Kadhem Juwad, a school administrator in Hurriyah.
Capt. R. Tyler Willbanks, from Gallatin, Tenn., turned to a reporter and asked in a rhetorical whisper: "Did he mention there were 25 dead bodies a day before we got here?" The Army's 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry, 172nd Stryker Brigade took over security in Hurriyah in August. Since they began patrols, the 35-year-old company commander claimed he and his men had reduced the death toll in their section of Hurriyah to about three a day. Outside the auditorium, two U.S. Army snipers clicked their rifles on safety and kicked at tufts of grass to pass the time.
Inside, Iraqi and American soldiers tossed their helmets in a mound behind the last row of chairs. Al Kelly, a colonel with 21 years of infantry experience, leaned in to better hear his interpreter, and jotted notes in a leather-bound notebook.
Kelly, who commands the 172nd Stryker Brigade, estimated about 90 percent of those in the room had ties to Sunni insurgents or Shiite militias, although the Sunni contingent was very small. Militia leaders and death squad members by night, they are residents in the daytime who worry about getting the trash collected and seeing that police are stationed near their children's schools. Those are the problems where Kelly said he figured the U.S. forces might find an opening into the deeper strife that rages through Baghdad's increasingly hostile districts.
"It's the evolution of our mission here," said Staff Sgt. Tony Prudhomme, 32, from Wilmington, N.C. The American organizers of Saturday's session sat in the back rows behind tribal sheiks in long brown robes and turbans.
"We're here to facilitate a meeting between the Iraqi with the problem and the Iraqi with the solution. Someone figures out how much it'll cost, someone else comes up with the money, we try to get them to communicate and implement plans, and two months later, a pothole gets fixed," the 172nd's Capt. Tom Kurtz, 37, said sarcastically.
Miska, the lieutenant colonel, said he had found ways to gauge success.
"You measure it in terms of how many people show up, the nature of the dialogue and whether people continue to come — whether it looks like civilian leaders are taking ownership for decisions, and whether they're being supported by Iraqi security forces. That's our goal," Miska said.
"We need to give the 20-something Iraqi men more alternatives for tomorrow than just blowing people up." A few U.S. soldiers who arrange meetings such as the one on Saturday are based at Hohenfels, Germany, where the Army has hired an outside contractor with experience in the Balkans to train troops in conflict resolution. But most are acting on instinct as they try to negotiate between religious factions, set neighborhood councils or rebuild shattered infrastructure.
"I think we've got the hang of it now, but it took some time. The company commanders were the most unprepared. They're infantryman trained for kinetic warfare," said Kurtz, a fire support officer and spokesman for the 172nd Stryker Brigade.
"Before they deployed, if you'd asked any of these guys if they'd be taking on the role of a policeman or community leader, they'd have never imagined," he said. Many of the soldiers in the outfit placed great value on the meeting, perhaps more than anyone else in the room. It got them off the dangerous streets of Hurriyah for a few hours, safe for that much longer before they head home.
Another shining example of MSM "professionalism" and "ethics" in action.sarc
Soldiers waded through a busy outdoor vegetable market in Hurriyah, a formerly Sunni neighborhood now dominated by Shiites. It's part of a crescent of Shiite dominance stretching from Sadr City in Baghdad's northeast across the Tigris River to neighborhoods like Hurriyah in the west, where U.S. forces have seen increasingly sophisticated attacks.
Where would we be without the internet?Thanx for the link:)
And if no one is selling, they will just make it up themselves, (see Mary Mapes and Dan Rather.)
I began looking at the mainstream media with skepticism nearly 40 years ago when Walter Cronkite painted Tet as a defeat for US troops, and I knew that it was not true. Today, I'm far past simply being skeptical of what they report. I assume up front that anything they report is a damn lie until I can ascertain from other sources if their is any truth at all in their story.
Once in a great while, maybe, a little truth would filter its way out and through the cheerleaders, liars, and demonrat supporters, but we know the lame stream media and their minions couldn't handle the truth, so we get cheerleaders, liars, and demonrat supporters views. I would LOL but I cry every time I hear the cheerleaders, liars, and demonrat supporters words fall near my ears. It truly hurts my brian, and then I know why we have so many people with their brains hurting in this country.
If done well, it could be very funny and be as widely reported on as the original story. I bet Toney’s up to it, but I doubt the Republican Party could defend it when questioned/interrogated later.
Have you ever saw Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obaidi? Is he Shia or Sunni?
Yeah, page 56 of a 40 page paper. The LSM will try to stick by the original reports just because the story fits their agenda.
This free-for-all being conducted by the Lame Stream Media will not stop until the majority of people stop buying/reading/watching/listening to their propaganda, and seek outside independent sources for news. We the People need to work together to shut these shils down.
Unconfirmed.. but accurate..
Imad al-Hasimi, a Sunni elder in Hurriyah, confirmed Hussein´s account. He told Al-Arabiya television he saw people who were soaked in kerosene, then set afire, burning before his eyes.
Two workers at Kazamiyah Hospital said the bodies from the clashes and immolations had been taken to the morgue at their facility. They refused to be identified by name, saying they feared retribution.
In spite of the police and witness accounts, however, President Jamal Talabani appeared to discount the reports. He emerged from meetings with other Iraqi political leaders late Friday and said Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obaidi told him that the Hurriyah neighborhood had been quiet throughout the day.
According to Hussein, the police official, militiamen rampaged through the district, setting fire to several homes in addition to the four mosques that were bombed and burned.
Some residents claimed that the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, has begun kidnapping and holding Sunni hostages in order to slaughter them at funerals of Shiite victims of Baghdad´s sectarian violence.
Such claims cannot be verified but speak to the deep fear that grips Baghdad, where retaliation has become a part of daily life.
http://www.mymotherlode.com/News/article/id/D8LK07F80
Is he Shia or Sunni?
Iraqi Interior minister Jawad Bolani (C) speaks during a joint press conference with Defence minister Abdul Qader Mohammed Jassim al-Obeidi (R) and Higher Education minister Abed Dhiab al-Ujaili (L), in Baghdad, 20 November 2006. The ministers spoke about last week's kidnapping of dozens of people from a Ministry of Higher Education office in central Baghdad. 11:08 a.m. ET, 11/20/06
WOW. This list of "Jamil Hussein"-sourced stories should be inserted in the Congressional Record, quoted by all Republicans on the US House and Senate floors, and prominently posted by all US "journalism schools" (ain't gonna happen) as a horrible demonstration of lousy, lazy, "fake but accurate" op. ed. "journalism." The same "journalism" we saw in Vietnam.
True..
Grave robbers! What a bunch of kooks.
It knocked my socks off.
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