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 wish I had as much faith as you that everything would go as smoothly as if there was not a war, no sectarian violence going on.
Do you remember all that happened that one day and imaging all the chaos the following days?
Who was it in dispute by, someone that was not at the scene? Someone that is thousands of miles away from the scene?
Who was it in dispute by, someone that was not at the scene? Someone that is thousands of miles away from the scene?
TexKat my friend, you didn't answer the question, yet again.
Here's chance number four:You are still maintaining that the Iraq Security forces standing by and doing nothing during some incident -- is true?
Besides you have too many questions, which you could probably find the answers to by googling.
Iraqi security forces were absent, unwilling or unable to stop the attackers.
“I live near Akbar al-Mustafa Mosque, which came under attack by gunmen around 7 this morning,” said a man who gave his name as Abu Ruqaiya and lives in Hurriya. “Around 3 in the afternoon, those gunmen bombed this mosque and destroyed part of it. They left only after American and Iraqi soldiers arrived.”
“My daughter lives near Mishhada mosque in this neighborhood, and she says gunmen killed and wounded some people there,” Abu Ruqaiya said in a phone interview. “There were clashes with the guards of the mosque.” Another resident of Hurriya said militiamen burned down the empty home of a former member of the Baath Party.
In Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on a Sunni mosque and battled with guards there, a police official said. Militants also shot at the provincial government center and the police headquarters. Insurgents destroyed the minaret of a Shiite mosque near the market with explosives or projectiles, the police official said.
The police in Baghdad discovered at least 31 bodies across the city on Friday, most showing signs of torture, The Associated Press reported.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/world/middleeast/25iraq.html?_r=1&bl=&ei=5087%0A&en=23041b64ccbdfd85&ex=1164776400&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
Thank you for the link ArmstedFragg.
You are seriously impugning the integrity of junk tabloid journalism, as you so deftly put it, with these comments!
Please think these things through more carefully in the future!
CA....
November 28, 2006
Questioning Reports Out Of Iraq
A number of right-leaning bloggers are criticizing the Associated Press for a pair of stories from Iraq. The first story, a version of which ran on CBSNews.com, stated that suspected members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia "grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive near Iraqi soldiers who did not intervene." The source for the story was police Capt. Jamil Hussein. CENTCOM has issued a press release disputing the legitimacy of the source and the story, and asking for a retraction or correction if the organization does not have "a credible source."
From the press release: "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." Hussein has been cited in other stories about atrocities as well; this blog, Flopping Aces, has more.
Today, the righty blogs are also criticizing this piece, which includes the following passage:
Separately, police and witnesses said U.S. soldiers shot and killed 11 civilians and wounded five on Sunday night in the Baghdad suburb of Husseiniya. The U.S. military said it had no record of any American military operation in the area.
"We were sitting inside our house when the Americans showed up and started firing at homes. They killed many people and burned some houses," said one of the witnesses, a man with bandages on his head who was being treated at Imam Ali Hospital in the Shiite slum of Sadr City. The police and witnesses spoke with Associated Press Television News on condition of anonymity to protect their own security.
Writes Riehl World View: " The military denies any operation in the area, still the AP feels compelled to print this trash from sources who won't even identify themselves?" CENTCOM claims "Anti-Iraqi Forces opened fire, targeting civilians in the al-Husseiniya area….There was no Coalition involvement."
These posts have been given headers like "It's Official: Media Body Burning Story is Bogus." The stories, along with one from the Los Angeles Times, are being used as further evidence that, in the words of the Anchoress, "The press has done everything else it possibly could to undermine our troops and the president, since 2003." She goes on to question whether such reporting has increased the likelihood that American troops will be killed. "I wonder how many of our troops are being further endangered by the fakery we’re discovering here? I wonder how many of their deaths in the coming weeks will be due to this sort of stuff?" Writes Michelle Malkin, in a post in which she refers to "the Associated (with terrorists) Press": "…we cannot trust third-hand accounts from shady 'spokesmen' funneled through dubious foreign stringers working for the terrorist-sympathizing, anti-Bush press to give us the straight scoop."
It's important to remember that we don't actually yet know if the AP's stories are "bogus." They may well be. They may not. Reporters face unique challenges in a war, and it's worthwhile to question the way they operate in Iraq, on everything from the necessary-but-risky use of stringers to the reliance on named and anonymous sources that may not be trustworthy. But because of their instinctive distrust of the mainstream media, some bloggers have drawn conclusions that, at this point, strike me as premature.
The press has an incentive to report on the sensational, which is why a reporter might put some degree of trust in a dubious source. But it also needs to maintain its credibility, and it's not in the AP's interest to run stories it does not believe to be true. News organizations do sometimes get this stuff wrong, and they should be held to account when they do. But most of the time they get it right, which is no small feat when covering a war. It's important, when looking at a situation like this, to take a step back and try to look objectively at all the facts, even the ones that don't fit our preconceived notions. The blogs deserve credit for raising this issue. Now it's time to get to the bottom of it.
UPDATE: USA Today got a comment from AP International Editor John Daniszewski, who writes that the "attempt to question the existence of the known police officer who spoke to the AP is frankly ludicrous and hints at a certain level of desperation to dispute or suppress the facts of the incident in question." He also writes that the AP stands by its story, and that "we have conducted a thorough review of the sourcing and reporting involved and plan to move a more detailed report about the entire incident soon, with greater detail provided by multiple eye witnesses."
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2006/11/28/publiceye/entry2212078.shtml
Questioning the sourcing of this story is not ludicrous and is entirely reasonable given the msm's recent history of using many questionable anonymous sources and the apparent fabrication of the Bush National Guard documents by CBS News. We're asking an entirely reasonable question: Who is "police captain" Jamil Hussein and was his identity as a police officer ever verified with Centcom by the AP? If his identity was not verified, then why wasn't it? Obviously, so obviously, any insurgent can claim to be a police officer and feed bogus stories to gullible AP reporters, so these are entirely reasonable questions to ask. The fact that this man calls such questions "ludicrous" indicates his desperation to suppress the facts about this story, which is apparently not credible.
The AP needs to understand that whether this specific incident actually happened is the minor issue here. The major issue, and the one the AP needs to address fully and immediately, is whether a source named Jamil Hussein actually exists and if so is he actually an Iraqi police officer. The AP needs to bring Jamil Hussein forward, verify his identity, and explain why his identity as a police officer was not verified with Centcom. I'm so tired of the msm's arrogant attitude that if they say something then it's true and they don't need verfified sources for their "news" stories.
Is this the beginning of asking about Iraqi police captains/officers that are mentioned in articles regarding Iraq?
If so where do we stop?
Google search:police Captain Rashid al-Samaraie
Google search: police Captain Ibrahim Kamil
Google search: police Captain Mohammed Abdul-Ghani
Why just pick this one particular person out of all the others? Who is it that is so determined to make this story false and why? Out of all that is happening in Iraq what was so special to someone about this story?
If the story was not, is not false, the real truth will never reach all that think that it is false now.
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.
No they do not need to bring this man forward, nor any other police forward. And if they need to notify Centcom, then that should be between Centcom and them (the media), not for every Tom, Dick and Harry that wants to play the Gotcha game.
You got it with Centcom, not with the Gotcha gang!
You have no idea what you're talking about. Do you work for the AP? We have every right to question bogus msm reporting.
You misquoted me in post 175. I never said that news reports have to be verified with Centcom, I said the identity of police officers used as sources should be verified with Centcom. Please do not fabricate quotes from me.
No I am not an AP employee. And you are entitled to your opinion defenderSD.
Now I must move along. Nice typing to you!
LMAO, I did not misquote you, I copied and pasted you.
Have a great day.
"Fake. but Accurate!"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.