December 14, 2006

Who Is Jamil Hussein?

I've been following, but only lightly blogging about, the controversy surrounding an Associated Press report from Iraq that increasingly appears to have been a fabrication. But now it is getting interesting...

Here's the basic facts: The AP published a story Nov. 24 reporting that Shia thugs in Baghdad had "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 U.S. military, the Iraqi government, and many others insisted the AP story was false and that the Iraqi police captain quoted in the story, "Jamil Hussein," either was fictitious or was not an Iraqi police officer. Since then, a number of bloggers have exposed other problems with the AP's reporting from Iraq highly suggestive of the possibility that some of the AP's "stringers" in Iraq are actually allied with the insurgency and are feeding the AP false information.

Among the bloggers who have been investigating the AP and looking for Jamil Hussein - and for a shred of legitimate evidence that the incident occurred - have been Curt at FloppingAces.com, and Michelle Malkin.

Yesterday, the story got more interesting when Malkin, noting the re-emergence of the Saddam-coddling former CNN executive Eason Jordan with a new Iraq war news website, IraqSlogger.com, challenged Jordan to find the answer to the question, "Who is Jamil Hussein?"

Jordan responded by posting this:

The search for Jamil Hussein is on, and rightly so. IraqSlogger's team in Baghdad is working to track him down. If we find him, we'll get back to you with details. If we can't find him, we'll report that, too. If Michelle Malkin wants to join the search in Baghdad, IraqSlogger will pay for her trip, and I'd even be willing to accompany her. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, the AP has yet to produce Jamil Hussein, nor show any evidence for its claim in the same story that four mosques in Hurriyah neighborhood of Baghdad were torched during the same incident. Bad news for the AP: Blogging independent journalist Michael Yon is headed to Hurriyah with a camera. If four of its mosques were or weren't burned, we'll have photographic proof soon enough. (And we'll wonder why the AP doesn't give its stringers cameras.)

My prediction: Jamil Hussein won't be found, because he doesn't exist. If Jamil Hussein existed, the AP could and would produce him. In nearly a month of criticism of the story, they haven't produced him, most likely because they can't. Meanwhile, bloggers and other journalists are increasingly digging into the AP's story. Soon, the AP will be shown to have been running false reports from Iraq based on information from Iraqi "stringers" affiliated with the enemy.