False Reports
There have been a lot of pixels spilled over the issue of the "burning Sunni" story the Associated Press published in November. The issue of whether or not that report was true was soon eclipsed by the issue of whether or not the source quoted in that report (as well as 60-some other lurid and graphic reports) actually existed at all. In the end the AP triumphantly announced they had produced the man (they didn't, they produced a man with an apparently different name, but that's yet another can of worms) and therefore were completely vindicated. Unfortunately for the AP, all the ruckus over the sideshow issue about whether or not "Jamil Hussein" existed or not really didn't matter. What really mattered was whether or not the reports he was the sole source for were true or not.
And Michelle Malkin produced photographic evidence that the four mosques supposedly destroyed in the original report are all still standing. All of them.
AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll indignantly attacked those who had questioned the global news organization's reporting: "I never quite understood why people chose to disbelieve us about this particular man on this particular story," she told Editor and Publisher. "AP runs hundreds of stories a day, and has run thousands of stories about things that have happened in Iraq."
Well, Bryan Preston and I visited the area during our Iraq trip last week. Several mosques did, in fact, come under attack by Mahdi Army forces. But the "destroyed" mosques all still stand. Iraqi and U.S. Army officials say that two of them received no fire damage whatsoever. Another, which we filmed, was abandoned and empty when it was attacked.
WE obtained summary reports and photos filed at the time by Iraqi and U.S. Army troops on the scene. They contain no corroborating evidence of Hussein's claim that "Shiite militiamen grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive near Iraqi soldiers who did not intervene."
One of the mosques identified by the AP, the Nidaa Alah mosque, had been abandoned and vacant at the time it was hit with small-arms fire, say Iraqi and U.S. Army officials. Two of its inside rooms were burned out by a lobbed firebomb, according to an Army report.
Three other mosques in the area - the al Muhaymin, al Mushahiba and Ahbab Mustafa mosques - sustained small-arms fire damage to their exteriors; the Mustafa mosque also had two rooms burned out by a firebomb.
Contrary to Hussein and the AP's account, military reports note that Iraqi Army battalion members were on the scene - pursuing attackers, securing the area, calling the fire department, providing support and an outer cordon.
Neither The New York Times nor The Washington Post was able to confirm AP's story.
The AP quoted one corroborating witness, Imad al-Hasimi, a Sunni elder in Hurriya, who "confirmed Hussein's account" of the immolated Sunnis on Al-Arabiya television. When Al-Hasimi later recanted, AP implied that it was due to pressure from Iraqi government officials. The other possibility: He recanted because it wasn't true.
The AP has a serious problem right now. They have been publicly caught in publishing an outright lie. They have compounded the issue by attempting to divert attention from that real issue by pushing a side issue as "vindication". They can either address the problem or they can continue their Watergate-style stonewall routine. How ironic is it that the AP is imitating Richard Nixon's White House?
UPDATE: Others: Don Surber, Power Line, Austin Bay, The Jawa Report, Little Green Footballs, Riehl World View, Patterico, Flopping Aces, Captain's Quarters, Dean's World, Confederate Yankee,
Blogosphere, Media | Gaius Sunday, 21 January , 2007
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Flopping Aces — Sunday, 21 January , 2007 @ 4:45 pm
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By Ben, Sunday, 21 January , 2007 @ 2:06 pm
You guys are funny. I wish you held the true powers that be to the same level of accountability, but you probably won’t because that’s off message.
By Gaius, Sunday, 21 January , 2007 @ 2:26 pm
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Funny thing, Ben. I don't, contrary to the routine charges from folks like yourself, do "message". These really are my thoughts, in my words on articles I find for myself. The left does coordinated messaging, Kos has said so. What you're doing is called projection.