[UPDATE] AP is refusing to correct their story despite being informed that their primary source is a fraud.
Via USA Today.
Lt. Dean's letter to the AP: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 OfficerDaniszewski's statement today:
The Associated Press denounces unfounded attacks on its story about six Sunni worshipers burned to death outside their mosque on Friday, November 24. 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 reporters who have been working in Iraq throughout the conflict learned of the mosque incident through witnesses and neighborhood residents and corroborated it with a named police spokesmen and also through hospital and morgue workers.
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. Several of those witnesses spoke to AP on the condition that their names would not be used because they fear reprisals.
The police captain cited in our story has long been known to the AP reporters and has been interviewed in his office and by telephone on several occasions during the past two years.
He is an officer at the police station in Yarmouk, with a record of reliability and truthfulness. His full name is Jamil Gholaiem Hussein.
The AP stands by its story.
Will continue with updates as they come.
Curt from Flopping Aces is constantly updating this story so make sure to keep checking his backup blog out here and his updates here.
Cross posted from Flopping Aces: Todays updates.
If your coming here looking for my story on the bogus Capt. Hussein go here. Also, I have put the names of my contacts back into their emails. Wanted to make sure I could first.
**
Another big update from Centcom. Recall my Update I where I link to this article by the AP: (big h/t to Reihl World View for finding the article)
Centcom just sent me this update:Separately, police and witnesses said U.S. soldiers shot and killed 11 civilians and wounded five on Sunday night in the Baghdad suburb of Husseiniya. The U.S. military said it had no record of any American military operation in the area.
“We were sitting inside our house when the Americans showed up and started firing at homes. They killed many people and burned some houses,” said one of the witnesses, a man with bandages on his head who was being treated at Imam Ali Hospital in the Shiite slum of Sadr City. The police and witnesses spoke with Associated Press Television News on condition of anonymity to protect their own security.
On Monday, about 250 people attended a memorial service outside the hospital’s morgue for the 11 victims, saying it was being conducted in the slum because the dead had been followers of the radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The cleric and his Madhi Army militia are both based in Sadr City.
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLYSo the AP prints a report in which "police" are quoted as saying the US fired on the civilians but the Iraqi police reported NO coalition involvement to the MoI.
Sir -
Reference the clarification requested on the story by AP below.
Anti-Iraqi Forces opened fire, targeting civilians in the al-Husseiniya area. 10 civilians were killed and six wounded at 11 p.m. Nov. 26. The incident was reported by the Iraqi Police through the Joint National Operations Center (a civilian matter relayed to the Coalition for tracking purposes). There was no Coalition involvement.
v/r
Capt. J. Elaine Hunnicutt (USAF)
Multi-National Corps - Iraq
Joint Operations Center
PAO OIC Nights
Another example of attempting to make news by our MSM.
UPDATE 2200hrs PST
Dan from Riehl World View has done some great workup on the writer of this bogus AP piece, one SAMEER N. YACOUB, and boy does he have a history. He was writer who wrote glowingly about Saddam and was present when the contractors were hung years ago:
Dan is all over it, check it out.
The MSM, specifically AP in this instance, is trying to actually create the news instead of reporting on it.
AP is not the only media outlet that has lied and had their hand called on it. New York Times, Newsweek and Weekly Standard have all had requests from the military to correct or retract stories that have been either totally false or completely distorted. (Those links are to the DOD site showing the communications between the military and the papers refusing to correct their inaccuracies or lies)
Head on over to Michelle Malkins site and take the poll on who you think is the biggest terrorist propaganda tool.
My Related Posts:
Reporters Source in Iraq Proven False.
Media Bias? Tell me it ain't so!!!!
Enemy Propaganda From Our Media.