Austin Bay Blog

The Associated Press should have asked this quesiton a long time ago.

Gateway Pundit  accuses the AP of using bogus sources in Iraq.

Flopping Aces doubted the validity of the “torched” Sunnis — and with good reason. (Go here for an earlier Flopping Aces post.)

Key accusation: 

 The MSM has been using bogus officials to supply chaos to their stories and based on those same stories has decided Iraq is now a official civil war.

The enemy cannot win the war for hearts and minds, it cannot win the war on the battlefield. The enemy believes it can win a war of perception. And who is helping them win that battle? “Aggressive” reporters who rely on phony sources or “stringers” who feed the reporters phony information.

We know the electronic media thrives on “hot imagery” –bombs, fires, street demonstrations, in other words the perception of chaos and destruction. They promote a pornography of violence. It takes five signs and ten chanters to create a demonstration for the camera. 

Here is Flopping Aces fifth update, which is particularly telling (go read all of his updates):

UPDATE V 1840hrs PST

Figured I would put together a handy bullet list of the articles in which our mysterious Capt. Jamil Hussein is mentioned:

• April 27th - Baghdad - Parliment family member gunned down (Sunni victims)
• April 30th - Baghdad (Dora District) - 6 men tortured and killed (Sunni victims)
• May 27th - Baghdad - Car bomb kills 4 (unknown victims)
• June 2nd - Baghdad (Dora District) - Mortor attack kills 9 (Sunni victims)
• June 11th - Baghdad (Ghazaliyah District) - Minivan attacked killing 4 (Sunni victims)
• June 19th - Baghdad - Two car bombs kill 7 (unknown victims)
• June 22nd - Baghdad - Suicide bomber kills 2 (unknown victims)
• July 10th - Baghdad (Amariyah district) - Van attacked killing 6 (Sunni victims)
• September 20th - Baghdad (Dora district) - Car bomb kills 7 (unknown victims)
• November 25th - Baghdad (Hurriyah district) - 6 burned to death (Sunni victims)

I would have to surmise that the ones where I could not discern if the victims were Sunni or not probably involved Sunni’s. Does this matter, as Allah at Hot Air asked? I’m not sure, but you would think a “police Captain” would see some Shia victims now and then wouldn’t you?

Now for the coup de grace.

First the MNC-I report on the phony Sunni torchings.

Contrary to recent media reporting that four mosques were burned in Hurriya, an Iraqi Army patrol investigating the area found only one mosque had been burned in the neighborhood.

Soldiers from the 6th Iraqi Army Division conducted a patrol in Hurriya Friday afternoon in response to media reports that four mosques were being burned as retaliation for the VBIED attacks in Sadr City on Thursday.

The Soldiers set up a checkpoint near the Al Muhaimen mosque at approximately 2 p.m. and found the mosque intact with no evidence of any fire at the location.

While investigating the Al Meshaheda mosque, the patrol received small arms fire from unknown insurgents.  The patrol returned fire, and the insurgents broke contact and fled the area.  A subsequent check of the mosque found the mosque intact with no evidence of a fire.

At approximately 3:50 p.m., a local civilian reported to the patrol that armed insurgents had set the Al-Nidaa mosque on fire by throwing a gas container into the mosque.  The patrol pursued the insurgents but lost contact with them.  

The Soldiers called the fire department and set up a cordon around the mosque.  Local fire trucks responded to the scene and extinguished the fire at approximately 4:00 p.m.  The mosque sustained smoke and fire damage in the entry way but was not destroyed.

An alleged attack on a fourth mosque remains unconfirmed.  The patrol was also unable to confirm media reports that six Sunni civilians were allegedly dragged out of Friday prayers and burned to death.  Neither Baghdad police nor Coalition forces have reports of any such incident.

And now –there is no Jamil Hussein.

Once again from Flopping Aces (with a CENTCOM email):

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

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 Dean

Michael B. Dean
Lieutenant, U.S. Navy
MNC-I Joint Operations Center
Public Affairs Officer

Not only is Capt. Hussein bogus, but another source the AP has used extensively is bogus.

The insurgency knows what they are doing here.

Great work by Flopping Aces and Gateway Pundit — and a slew of other bloggers. The AP has a lot of explaining to do.