Among many conservative bloggers the Associated Press has a reputation for trustworthiness that ranks with that of Pravda, and there is a reason for that feeling. 

In the past year AP has had:

A Pulitzer prize winning photographer detained by the American Military for colluding with terrorists. This photographer Bilal Hussien had previously had questions raised about his relationship with terrorists in Iraq based a photograph of terrorists executing an election worker on Haifa Street in Baghdad and the admission by the AP that the photographer was tipped off by the terrorists:

A source at the Associated Press knowledgeable about the events covered in Baghdad on Sunday told Salon that accusations that the photographer was aware of the militants’ plans are “ridiculous.” The photographer, whose identity the AP is withholding due to safety concerns, was likely “tipped off to a demonstration that was supposed to take place on Haifa Street,” said the AP source, who was not at liberty to comment by name. But the photographer “definitely would not have had foreknowledge” of a violent event like an execution, the source said.

Insurgents want their stories told as much as other people and some are willing to let Iraqi photographers take their pictures. It’s important to note, though, that the photographers are not “embedded” with the insurgents. They do not have to swear allegiance or otherwise join up philosophically with them just to take their pictures.

In other cases Hussien was clearly operating with Anti-American forces, as shown here and here. In addition he was the source for a story of Americans killing  civilians attempting to flee Fallujah in 2004:

By Tuesday afternoon, as U.S. forces and Iraqi rebels engaged in fierce clashes in the heart of his neighborhood, Hussein snapped.
“U.S. soldiers began to open fire on the houses, so I decided that it was very dangerous to stay in my house,” he said.

“I decided to swim … but I changed my mind after seeing U.S. helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river.” He watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross. Then, he “helped bury a man by the river bank, with my own hands.”

“I kept walking along the river for two hours and I could still see some U.S. snipers ready to shoot anyone who might swim. I quit the idea of crossing the river and walked for about five hours through orchards.”

When he was picked up by American forces in April Bilal Hussien was in the company of Al-Qaeda leadership in a room with bomb making material.  That certainly sounds like a tight relationship.

Another stringer Bassem Mroue was exposed for his Anti-Israeli / Anti-American bias here and here.

Now Curt at Flopping Aces has found that a source for a number of AP stories either doesn’t exist or isn’t who he claims to be:

Doing a search via Google I began reading the stories printed about the burned six and each and every one had one thing in common. The only person stating that this incident happened was one Capt. Jamil Hussein. Every news report printed this man as the source of the information. […]

[…] Got an update from Centcom. I sent them an email asking if they had any information on this Capt and I received:

• -We are checking with the Iraqi Government to verify that Capt. Jamil Hussein is a legitimate Iraqi Government spokesperson. We haven’t heard back yet. Unfortunately, people posing as government officials often do call the media to make statements.
• We have no confirmation that this event happened; so it is very likely that this is not a legitimate source. In addition, of the four mosques that were suppose to have been burned/destroyed at that time; we only confirmed one mosque was damaged by a fire that lasted an hour and then was extinguished with no casualties.[…]-

[…] (From CENTCOM) I personally engaged CPATT about Capt. Jamil Hussein’s legitimacy within an hour of seeing the burning alive story — which we cannot verify from any source, but how do you prove a negative.

Of note, we definitely know that one IP spokesman - Lt. Maithem Abdul Razzaq of the city’s Yarmouk police station (a.k.a. police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razaq) is not authorized to speak on behalf of the IP and the MOI supposedly issued a warrant for his questioning. That happened a couple of weeks ago and I haven’t seen his name recently.

Below is an incomplete list of MOI spokesmen we are tracking since the middle of November and trying to verify.

Very respectfully,

LT Dean

MOI/IP spokesman (mostly AP)

• police Lt. Ali Abbas
• police Capt. Mohammed Abdel-Ghani.
• Police Brigadier Sarhat Abdul-Qadir
• Mosul police Director Gen. Wathiq al-Hamdani
• police Lt. Bilal Ali
• Ali al-Obaidi, a medic at Ramadi Hospital, police Maj. Firas Gaiti said.
• Police Captain Mohammed Ismail
• Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the Interior Ministry spokesman (a.k.a. Police Brigadier Abd al-Karim Khalaf, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, Brig. Abdel-Karim Khalaf)
• Mohammed Khayon, a Baghdad police lieutenant
• police spokesman Mohammed Kheyoun. (a.k.a. Police Lieutenant Mohammed Khayoun)
• Lt. Thaer Mahmoud, head of a police section responsible for releasing daily death tolls
• police Lt. Bilal Ali Majid said
• police Lt. Ali Muhsin.
• police 1st. Lt. Mutaz Salahhidine. (a.k.a. Lieutenant Mutaz Salaheddin)
• Col. Abbas Mohammed Salman policeman Haider Satar […]

[…]BIG UPDATE…..Centcom has confirmed this Capt. Jamil Hussein is NOT a Police Officer nor is he employed by the Ministry of Interior.

Curt goes on to outline all the stories he can find, beginning on April 27th of this year and notes that all of them have a byline of Qais Al-Bashir, who appears to be the only one who ever talks to Capt. Hussien

Qais Al-Bashir also happens to have the byline on the AP version of the Ramadi Air Strike story currently being contested by Patterico, and another name on CENTCOM’s list appears as a source

So what this looks like from the sidelines is a fairly sophisticated Media Disinformation Campaign.  Given that we know from captured documents that Al-Qaeda had a well thought out media plan this isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

The AP of course denies this:

The Associated Press is standing by its report that six Sunni men were burned to death in Baghdad Friday by Shiites, even though U.S. military officials have accused the wire service of relying on a source who “is not who he claimed he was,” an Iraqi police captain.

Military officials also say they cannot confirm that the incident took place and have asked AP to retract or correct the story, which was repeated by media around the world and cited as a grim example of Shiites taking revenge for a deadly bombing that killed more than 200 people a day before.

“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,” AP International Editor John Daniszewski said in a statement e-mailed to On Deadline this afternoon.

He added 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.”

“The police captain cited in our story has long been known to the AP reporters,” Daniszewski wrote.

“The AP stands by its story.”

But a U.S. military spokesman has told the AP in a letter that “neither we nor Baghdad Police had any reports of such an incident … and could find no one to corroborate the story.”

“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,” Navy Lt. Michael Dean, the spokesman, wrote to the AP on Monday.

One more discrepancy which I hope is Independent Sources contribution to unraveling this mystery.  In the Washington Post story regarding this incident it states:

Seeking further information about Friday’s attack, an AP reporter contacted Hussein for a third time about the incident to confirm there was no error. The captain has been a regular source of police information for two years and had been visited by the AP reporter in his office at the police station on several occasions. The captain, who gave his full name as Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, said six people were indeed set on fire.

Let’s assume that Capt. Jamil Hussien has been a source for two years but his name has only recently appeared in print;  how do we know he exists?  The only verification according to the AP is that the reporter quoting him has visited his offce.  Has an editor ever met this guy?  More than one reporter?  More than one reporter at any given time?

Stay tuned for developments.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 at 12:19 am by Chad and is filed under Brilliant, but uncategorizable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.