The AP Responds on Jamil Hussein
The Associated Press’ Kathleen Carroll has written a response to critiques of the AP’s “six burned Sunnis” story. I wrote a column asking about the source, alleged Police Captain Jamil Hussein. I also pointed out that a number of people would not be satisfied if the AP investigated itself.
by Kathleen Carroll
***
In recent days, a handful of people have stridently criticized The
Associated Press’ coverage of a terrible attack on Iraqi citizens last
month in Baghdad. Some of those critics question whether the incident
happened at all and declare that they don’t believe our reporting.
Indeed, a small number of them have whipped themselves into an indignant
lather over the AP’s reporting.
Their assertions that the AP has been duped or worse are unfounded and
just plain wrong.
No organization has done more to try to shed light on what happened Nov.
24 in the Hurriyah neighborhood of Baghdad than The Associated Press.
We have sent journalists to the neighborhood three different times to talk
with people there about what happened. And those residents have repeatedly
told us, in some detail, that Shiite militiamen dragged six Sunni
worshippers from a mosque, drenched them with kerosene and burned them
alive.
No one else has said they have actually gone to the neighborhood.
Particularly not the individuals who have criticized our journalism with
such barbed certitude.
The AP has been transparent and fair since the first day of our reporting
on this issue.
We have not ignored the questions about our work raised by the U.S.
military and later, by the Iraqi Interior Ministry. Indeed, we published
those questions while also sending AP journalists back out to the scene to
dig further into what happened and why others might be questioning the
initial accounts.
The AP mission was to get at the facts, wherever those facts took us.
What we found were more witnesses who described the attack in particular
detail as well as describing the fear that runs through the neighborhood.
We ran a lengthy story on those additional findings, as well as the
questions, on Nov. 28.
Some of AP’s critics question the existence of police Capt. Jamil Hussein,
who was one (but not the only) source to tell us about the burning.
These critics cite a U.S. military officer and an Iraqi official who first
said Hussein is not an authorized spokesman and later said he is not on
their list of Interior Ministry employees. It’s worth noting that such
lists are relatively recent creations of the fledgling Iraqi government.
By contrast, Hussein is well known to AP. We first met him, in uniform, in
a police station, some two years ago. We have talked with him a number of
times since then and he has been a reliable source of accurate information
on a variety of events in Baghdad.
No one - not a single person - raised questions about Hussein’s accuracy
or his very existence in all that time. Those questions were raised only
after he was quoted by name describing a terrible attack in a neighborhood
that U.S. and Iraqi forces have struggled to make safe.
That neighborhood, Hurriyah, is a particularly violent section of Baghdad.
Once a Sunni enclave, it now is dominated by gunmen loyal to anti-American
Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Many people there talked to us about the
attack, but clammed up when they realized they might be quoted publicly.
They felt understandably nervous about bringing their accusations up in an
area patrolled by a Shiite-led police force that they suspect is allied
with the very militia accused in these killings.
Here’s how AP veteran Patrick Quinn described life in Hurriyah on Oct. 11
this year:
“By early October, Shiite militiamen were roaming the streets of Hurriyah,
kidnapping, killing and intimidating Sunnis. Handbills circulating this
fall warned that 10 Sunnis would die for every Shiite killed.”
In a Nov. 22 story on how October was the deadliest month on record for
Iraqi civilians, AP Baghdad bureau chief Steve Hurst wrote: “Lynchings
have been reported as Sunnis and Shiites conduct a merciless campaign of
revenge killings.
“Some Shiite residents in the north Baghdad neighborhood of Hurriyah claim
that militiamen and death squads are holding Sunni captives in warehouses,
then slaughtering them at the funerals of Shiites killed in the
tit-for-tat murders.”
No one from the Iraqi Interior Ministry or the U.S. military complained
about those descriptions. In fact, soldiers of the U.S. Army’s 1st
Battalion, 17th Infantry, 172nd Stryker Brigade were dispatched to
Hurriyah late this summer to try to bring it under control.
AP’s Lauren Frayer, embedded with the 172nd during the Hurriyah
deployment, described their efforts in early November. Capt. R. Tyler
Willbanks, from Gallatin, Tenn., said “there were 25 dead bodies a day
before we got here&hellip” a number they got down to three a day before
the latest eruption at the end of November.
The story of the burnings has gotten far more attention in the United
States than in Iraq, where vicious torture and death are sadly
commonplace. Dozens of Iraqi citizens are gunned down in their cars,
dragged from their homes or blown apart in public places every single day.
As careful followers of the Iraq story know well, various militias have
been accused of operating within the Interior Ministry, which controls the
police and has long worked to suppress news of death-squad activity in its
ranks. (This is the same ministry that questioned Capt. Hussein’s
existence and last week announced plans to take legal action against
journalists who report news that creates the impression that security in
Iraq is bad, “when the facts are totally different.”)
The Iraqi journalists who work for the AP are smart, dedicated and
incredibly courageous to go into the streets every day, talking to their
countrymen and trying to capture a portrait of their home in a historic
and tumultuous period.
The work is dangerous: two people who work for AP have been killed since
this war began in 2003. Many others have been hurt, some badly.
Several of AP’s Iraqi journalists were victimized by Saddam Hussein’s
regime and bear scars of his torture or the loss of relatives killed by
his goons. Those journalists have no interest in furthering the chaos that
makes daily life in Iraq so perilous. They want what any of us want: To be
able to live and work without fear and raise their children in peace and
safety.
Questioning their integrity and work ethic is simply offensive.
It’s awfully easy to take pot shots from the safety of a computer keyboard
thousands of miles from the chaos of Baghdad.
The Iraq war is one of hundreds of conflicts that AP journalists have
covered in the past 160 years. Our only goal is to provide fair, impartial
coverage of important human events as they unfold. We check our facts and
check again.
That is what we have done in the case of the Hurriyah attack. And that is
why we stand by our story.
End of Statement
In other words, Jamil Hussein does not exist, but let’s overlook that fact. The witness is fake, but more importantly, the story is accurate!
Comment by James Chen — 12/8/2006 @ 5:21 pm
Sounds like Kathleen Carroll is channeling Dan Rather. Pathetic.
Comment by Rich — 12/8/2006 @ 7:21 pm
On behalf of AP, She refuses to answer. Most telling.
Comment by Homer Robinson — 12/8/2006 @ 7:21 pm
So still they are fighting back with no ammunition, this is gonna create another landslide of grief for them. The Jamil Hussein source is not their only one in question. Yet somehow they continue to quote them but can’t produce them Let’s all move to the other side of the StarGate, maybe then it will all become clear.
Comment by SlimGuy — 12/9/2006 @ 6:25 am
Who were the “journalists” they sent to reinforce the story. Were any of them known AP international journalists or were the wordsmithed other stringers of some less than credible reliability. I note the indignation of the Iraq government creating an “ItJustDoesn’tFly” list. If indeed less than credible reporting is coming out of the area, would any one with a reasonable mind expect them not to strike back. The only wonder should be why did it take so long.
Comment by SlimGuy — 12/9/2006 @ 6:44 am
We’re the AP. Our word is gospel, and to question it is sacrilgeous. But since a small handful of disbelivers have, we will stoop to answer it this one time. So listen up. We’re the AP. Our word is gospel, and to question…
Comment by Robert — 12/9/2006 @ 6:59 am
In my experience in the media, AP rarely if ever corrected any of their factual mistakes and they make plenty of them every day. This is an unsual case, however, so maybe they’ll come around. They certainly don’t look good as the ripples from the blogosphere’s rocks thrown into AP’s pool widen.
Comment by Dick Stanley — 12/9/2006 @ 7:43 pm
Pure stonewalling. To restate the problem: They claim Jamil Hussien is a police captain. The Iraqi MOI says that he is not. The simple answer they could give is his name isn’t Jamil hussein, it’s changed to protect him. But They don’t say this. That seems to leave us with a “he said she said” situation EXCEPT AP HAS CHANGED THE FACTS OF THE STORY! AP is simply caught either duped or lying and can’t back up.
Comment by bhedrick — 12/10/2006 @ 12:29 am
The AP needs to produce the excellent Mr. Hussein. It also needs to produce the names of those Iraqis who were allegedly burned to death. At this point nothing else will do. If it cannot do these two things, we can safely assume it is guilty of fraud as charged.
Comment by Paul Danish — 12/10/2006 @ 1:48 am
Scoop! Time’s 2006 Man-of-the-Year, days ahead of… It took a single, surreptitous email from my mole to preempt one of the media’s most anticipated events. Yes, Time Magazine’s Man-of-the-Year is none other than……
Trackback by Doug Ross @ Journal — 12/10/2006 @ 12:45 pm
Surprise, surprise. The AP will stonewall, and the rest of the MSM will back them up.
Comment by Harold C. Hutchison — 12/10/2006 @ 4:33 pm
“We check our facts and check again.” But don’t assume we use them: For AP Facts are precious things And we will not abuse them. Beside the fact is where we sit When others dare to question. We guard it well, so Go To Hell, If truth you dare to mention. This is, we boast, the eAP, A service that’s essential. And when the facts get in the way, They’re gone — it’s elemental. We get the stories others don’t, Because they must research them. For us there is a better way: Imagine and report them!
Comment by Eponius — 12/10/2006 @ 5:53 pm