Jamil Hussein controversy

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The Jamil Hussein controversy refers to an allegation by conservative bloggers, including Michelle Malkin, that a massacre the Associated Press reported had never happened. When the source, a man named Jamil Hussein, was called upon to substantiate his claims and failed to surface, it was suggested that he did not exist ^[1].

The AP reported that "rampaging militiamen burned and blew up four mosques" in the Hurriya neighborhood of Baghdad and that six Sunnis had been dragged out of prayers and burnt alive.^[2] They attributed this claim to "Jamil Hussein", saying he was a captain in the Iraqi police.

The Multi-National Force - Iraq claimed that an "an Iraqi Army patrol investigating the area found only one mosque had been burned in the neighborhood" and "was also unable to confirm media reports that six Sunni civilians were allegedly dragged out of Friday prayers and burned to death."^[3].

Malkin has issued a correction for her denial of Capt. Hussein's existence^[4] but contests AP claims of destroyed mosques and civilians burned alive. Malkin visited Iraq and claimed that only one mosque had suffered significant damage. She further claimed that the AP's only corroborating witness has recanted and that no-one since has found any evidence of the claim about people being burned alive.^[5]

Contents 1 Background 2 Jamil Hussein 3 Was Hussein reliable as sole source for earliest version of this story? 4 Associated Press reaction 5 External links 6 References

[edit] Background

In an Associated Press report published November 25, 2006 by ABC News ^[6], the AP, in part, reported:

...rampaging militiamen burned and blew up four mosques and torched several homes in the capital's mostly Shia neighborhood of Hurriyah, police said. Iraqi soldiers at a nearby army post failed to intervene in the assault by suspected members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia or subsequent attacks that killed a total of 25 Sunnis, including women and children, said police Capt. Jamil Hussein.

The U.S. military said Saturday that Iraqi soldiers securing the Hurriyah area had found only one burned mosque and could not confirm reports that six Sunni civilians had been burned to death with kerosene.

Al-Sadr on Friday urged Harith al-Dhari, the Sunnis' most influential leader who heads the Association of Muslim Scholars, to issue a religious edict condemning Sunni attacks on Shiites.

In an apparent response, Al-Dhari held a news conference in Cairo, Egypt, on Saturday and said the association has repeatedly condemned the killing of Iraqi Muslims and attacks on their homes and mosques."

Despite the claim by the Multi-National Force - Iraq, a report in the Washington Post, reports that multiple mosques were attacked, essentially confirming the AP battlefield report.^[7]

On January 4, 2007 the AP reported that the Interior Ministry recognized Jamil as an active member of the Multi-National Force - Iraq, and said he faces arrest for breaking the order not to talk to journalists, an order that all Iraqi police officers sign when they join the police force.^[8] According to AP, Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied Hussein's existence, acknowledged that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station.^[9]

On January 21, 2007, conservative blogger Michelle Malkin claimed in an opinion article in the New York Post that she had visited two of the six mosques on a trip she said she had taken to Iraq.^[10] At her online HotAir magazine, Malkin posted video that she said was taken during her trip to one of the mosques showing a substantially destroyed dome. She reported that this mosque had also been hit with small-arms fire and two of its inside rooms were burned out by a firebomb.^{[10] [11]} She published photos of the Muhaymin, Nidaa Allah, and Mustafa mosques that she claims were taken the day after the attacks.^[12]

Malkin questioned whether Hussein existed and later apologized for that error.

[edit] Jamil Hussein

According to early AP reports, Jamil Hussein^[13] is a police captain with an office at the Yarmouk police station in western Baghdad^[14]. More recently, AP provided information that their source was named Jamal Gholaiem Hussein, and has been more recently stationed in the al-Khadra district.^[8] He was said to have been "a regular source of police information for two years"^[13].

Former CNN Chief News Executive Eason Jordan began a report on the controversy ^[15] with:

If an Iraqi police captain by the name of Jamil Hussein exists, there is no convincing evidence of it - and that means the Associated Press has a journalistic scandal on its hands that will fester until the AP deals with it properly.

The AP's executive editor, Kathleen Carroll, says she had not read Jordan's latest item, and likely would not.^[16]

On 4 January 2007, Editor and Publisher reported that Jamil Hussein is a real person, just as the AP had reported. Associated Press issued a statement to Editor & Publisher reporting that, contrary to previous reports, Capt. Jamil Gholaiem Hussein is an officer in the Iraqi police force, assigned to Khadra. The AP's source for the story was the Iraqi Interior Ministry, which also released information about the pending arrest and disciplinary action against Hussein for "breaking police regulations against talking to reporters." ^[8]

On 15 February 2007, Pajamas Media reported that Iraqi Interior Ministry Spokesman Brigadier General Abdul-Karim Khalaf has flatly rejected the AP-supplied identity of Capt. Jamil Gholaiem Hussein as a pseudonym. Khalaf said that an Associated Press reporter had confirmed to him on two occasions that the real name of the AP source was Iraqi Police Captain Jamil Gulaim Innad al-Jashami.

[edit] Was Hussein reliable as sole source for earliest version of this story?

While Jamil Hussein claimed that four mosques were burned and blown up ^[17] no evidence of this has been found, apart from damage to one mosque. In the follow-up article that appears on the ABC news site, AP names one mosque that was damaged in a follow-up story.^[13]

There are inconsistencies between different AP versions of the "Burning Six" story. In one version, the dead were taken to the morgue at Al-Yarmouk hospital.^[17] In a later version of the story, the six victims were taken away by residents and buried in a nearby cemetery.^[13]

According to Edward Wong, a The New York Times reporter who reported on the events in Baghdad on November 24, 2006:

When we first heard of the event on Nov. 24, through the A.P. story and a man named Imad al-Hashemi talking about it on television, we had our Iraqi reporters make calls to people in the Hurriya neighborhood. Because of the curfew that day, everything had to be done by phone. We reached several people who told us about the mosque attacks, but said they had heard nothing of Sunni worshippers being burned alive. Any big news event travels quickly by word of mouth through Baghdad, aided by the enormous proliferation of cell phones here. Such an incident would have been so abominable that a great many of the residents in Hurriya, as well as in other Sunni Arab districts, would have been in an uproar over it. Hard-line Sunni Arab organizations such as the Muslim Scholars Association or the Iraqi Islamic Party would almost certainly have appeared on television that day or the next to denounce this specific incident. Iraqi clerics and politicians are not shy about doing this. Yet, as far as I know, there was no widespread talk of the incident.^[18]

Other media (The New York Times^[19] and the Washington Post^[20]) advanced the story.

For example, the Washington Post reporters wrote:

Friday's attacks illustrated Iraqi security forces' inability to rein in violence, at a time when U.S. leaders :want them to take greater responsibility for the country's security, a vital benchmark for any strategy to :withdraw U.S. troops.

In the mixed Hurriyah neighborhood, Shiite militiamen torched at least five Sunni mosques on Islam's holiest :prayer day, police and residents reported. Other mosques were attacked by gunmen spraying bullets from the :rooftops of nearby houses, witnesses said.

In one mosque, militiamen detonated a cooking gas cylinder. In another, they declared that it was now a :husseiniya, a Shiite mosque, and posted pictures of Sadr, whose stronghold of Sadr City was attacked Thursday. :At least 18 people were killed Friday and 24 injured in the mosque attacks in Hurriyah, said Adil Mahmoud, a :physician from al-Nouman Hospital in the nearby Adhamiyah neighborhood.^[21]

[edit] Associated Press reaction

Associated Press reporters returned and found 'more witnesses who described the attack in particular detail'; these new witnesses are all anonymous, AP stating that they fear persecution if identified. AP reported that Capt. Jamil Hussein is a genuine police contact and argue that the Interior Ministry's files were inaccurate.^[22]

On January 4, 2007, the Associated Press reported that Hussein was in danger of being arrested for speaking to the press.^[23] Blogger Michelle Malkin issued a correction. She wrote:

"The AP reported that the Ministry of Interior in Iraq has now said a Captain Jamil Hussein does work in the al Khadra police station. I regret the error."^[4]

The Associated Press, which has lost four employees to violence in Iraq so far, has questioned bloggers attacking their credibility. AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll has said "I never quite understood why people chose to disbelieve us about this particular man on this particular story... AP runs hundreds of stories a day, and has run thousands of stories about things that have happened in Iraq." Carroll suggested that critics might be more concerned that Hussein could face imprisonment for being a source to journalists. "I think a little perspective is warranted here," she said. "While this has been going on, hundreds if not thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed and hundreds of serviceman have died."^[24]

[edit] External links

• "So Just Who Is Capt. Jamil Hussein?", The Lede, The New York Times, 30 November 2006.
• "Say no to AP's shoddy work", The Boston Herald, 3 December 2006.
• "Separating Hyperbole From Horror in Iraq ". The New York Times, 4 December 2006.
• "AP's Iraqi Source Is Real: Now What Do Conservative Bloggers Say?" at Editor and Publisher, 5 January 2007
• "Spherics", On The Media, National Public Radio, 12 January 2007
• "The Jamil Hussein Name Game -- Iraqi General Weighs In ", Pajamas Media, 15 February 2007

[edit] References

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