Captain Jamil Hussein
From MediaMythBusters
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Summary
Captain Jamil Hussein
The Associated Press named police Capt. Jamil Hussein as a source for more than 60 stories that reported Shiite-Sunni violence in Iraq, including the Burning Six incident. Efforts to verify Hussein's identity went on for several months, with his existence being in question part of that time. Eventually it was discovered that Jamil Hussein was a pseudonym and a number of the events cited in the stories he sourced have now been disproved or called into question.
Capt. Jamil Hussein source for Burning Six story
On November 24, 2006, the Associated Press reported a story attributed to a source named as police Capt. Jamil Hussein. The story later came to be referred to by many as the Burning Six incident. The report said that "Shiite militiamen grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive near Iraqi soldiers who did not intervene" and that "Mahdi Army militia burned four mosques, and several homes."
Impact of the original report.
Just days following the November 24, 2006 AP report of Shiite on Sunni violence, NBC News made an editorial decision regarding the conflict in Iraq. On the Monday following that weekend report, Matt Lauer announced on NBC's Today Show that NBC News had made a decision, based on recent instances of violence, to refer to the conflict in Iraq as a civil war.
"As you know, for months now the White House has rejected claims that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated into civil war. And for the most part, news organizations, like NBC, have hesitated to characterize it as such. But, after careful consideration, NBC News has decided the change in terminology is warranted -- that the situation in Iraq, with armed militarized factions fighting for their own political agendas, can now be characterized as civil war."
Questions/problems
On November 25, 2006, the result of a search via Google of stories regarding the "burning six" all had one thing in common. The only person cited stating that the incident happened was Capt. Jamil Hussein. Every news report cited Hussein as the source of the information.
A Google search for all stories in which the name Jamil Hussein was cited resulted in multiple stories prior to that of the "burning six."
In yesterday's worst violence, the bodies of six handcuffed, blindfolded and tortured men were found in the Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, said police Capt. Jamil Hussein.
Violence resumed Saturday as a bomb in a parked car exploded near a busy bus station in southern Baghdad, killing at least four civilians and wounding seven, police Capt. Jamil Hussein said. [...]Elsewhere, a policeman was killed and an officer wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their convoy in Baghdad's western district of Mansour, Razzaq said. He also said three policemen were wounded when gunmen ambushed a convoy of Interior Ministry commandos in the southern neighbourhood of al-Bayaa in the capital. Gunmen in three speeding cars also ambushed a patrol in western Baghdad, wounding 10 people, including six policemen, and two other policemen were injured in drive-by shootings in a nearby neighbourhood, police Capt. Jamil Hussein said. Two other policemen were injured Saturday in drive-by shootings elsewhere in western Baghdad, when gunmen in two speeding cars attacked their patrol in Amiriya neighbourhood of western Baghdad, police Capt. Jamil Hussien said.
Two explosions struck an Interior Ministry patrol and a market in the Baghdad area on Monday evening, killing at least seven people and wounding 16, police said. The first attack was a car bomb that struck an Interior Ministry patrol in western Baghdad, killing four commandos and wounding six, Capt. Jamil Hussein said. About 30 minutes later, a bomb exploded in a market in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 10.
Gunmen also ambushed a bus in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Amariyah in western Baghdad, killing six passengers, including a woman, and the driver, police Capt. Jamil Hussein said.
A suicide truck bomb slammed into a Baghdad police headquarters on Wednesday, killing seven and wounding at least double that many, in a deadly 24 hours that saw more than 45 killings in Iraq, including two American soldiers, authorities said. The truck bomb attack in the southern Baghdad neighbourhood of Dora came at 07:45 as policemen were coming on duty and the blast razed the building, said captain Jamil Hussein. He said the number of casualties was expected to rise.One common thread in all the stories was that they pertained to violence perpetrated against Sunnis.
Conflicting reports
U.S. military press releaseContrary 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.Requests to Centcom for information regarding Capt. Jamil Hussein yielded the following on November 25, 2006:
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.A record of initial efforts to verify the AP source, Capt. Jamil Hussein can be found at the blog Flopping Aces.
Corrections to/revisions of original story
AP - Shiite militiamen grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive near Iraqi soldiers who did not intervene, police Capt. Jamil Hussein said.
The savage revenge attack for Thursday's slaying of 215 people in the Shiite Sadr City slum occurred as members of the Mahdi Army militia burned four mosques, and several homes while killing an unknown number of Sunni residents in the once-mixed Hurriyah neighbourhood of Baghdad.
WaPo - 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.
Throughout Friday, rumors of new atrocities committed against Sunnis floated across Baghdad, including one in which six Sunnis were doused with kerosene and torched to death in Hurriyah. But two local imams, in an interview, denied such an attack took place.
AP - In Hurriyah, the rampaging militiamen also burned and blew up four mosques and torched several homes in the district, Hussein said.
AP - Sunni residents in a volatile northwest Baghdad neighborhood claimed Friday that revenge-seeking Shiite militiamen had destroyed four Sunni mosques, burned homes and killed many people, while the Shiite-dominated police force stood by and did nothing.
AP - Earlier that day, 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.
AP - Defying a government curfew, Shiite militiamen stormed Sunni mosques in Baghdad and a nearby city on Friday, shooting guards and burning down buildings in apparent retaliation for the devastating bombings that killed more than 200 people the day before in the capital’s largest Shiite district, residents and police officials said.
Militia fighters drove through neighborhoods in Baghdad and the provincial capital of Baquba, firing at mosques with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades on the Muslim day of prayer.
[...]From morning until afternoon, at least four mosques were attacked in Hurriya, a mixed neighborhood in the capital. Two were destroyed, and at least 5 Sunnis were killed and 10 wounded, an Interior Ministry official said. A hard-line Sunni Arab group, the Muslim Scholars Association, said 18 people had been killed when one of the mosques burned down.</p>
Iraqi security forces were absent, unwilling or unable to stop the attackers.
Chronology
November 24, 2006
The AP reports:
AP - Shiite militiamen grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive near Iraqi soldiers who did not intervene, police Capt. Jamil Hussein said.
The savage revenge attack for Thursday's slaying of 215 people in the Shiite Sadr City slum occurred as members of the Mahdi Army militia burned four mosques, and several homes while killing an unknown number of Sunni residents in the once-mixed Hurriyah neighbourhood of Baghdad.
November 25, 2006
Blogger Curt from Flopping Aces notices that the main source for all the stories reported about the mosques being burned and six men being burned alive is a Jamil Hussein:
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.
If you do a search for this name you come up with ten pages of pretty much the same article describing the burning six.
Trying to dig up some information on this man as we speak.
Centcom issues a response:
CENTCOM - 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.
[...]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.
Curt at Flopping Aces emails Centcom for more information on the mosque burning and the source used by the AP for the stories. Lt. Dean from Centcom responds
CENTCOM - 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.
Soon after Centcom emails Curt with confirmation that the main source for all the above stories is suspect:
Classification: UNCLASSIFIEDSir:
Since September we have been engaging CPATT to verify the legitimacy and employment status of various MOI/IP spokesmen. Our contact at CPATT has been quite helpful, however, I know helping us is not his full-time job. Interestly, MOI has apparently issued an edict that no one below the level of Chief can speak to the media. We have reminded AP of this but without proof that these spokesman are not employees, they have pretty much ignored us. (If you were a reporter, would who give up a primo source because of rank? Probably not.)
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
- 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
- police Lt. Ali Muhsin.
- police 1st. Lt. Mutaz Salahhidine. (a.k.a. Lieutenant Mutaz Salaheddin)
- Col. Abbas Mohammed Salman
- policeman Haider Satar
November 27, 2006
Centcom demands a retraction from the AP:
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
MSNBC cites the story of six Sunni's being burned alive as one reason they will now call Iraq "a civil war":
The news from Iraq is becoming grimmer every day. Over the long holiday weekend bombings killed more than 200 people in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad. And six Sunni men were doused with kerosene and burned alive. Shiite muslims are the majority, but Sunnis like Saddam Hussein ruled that country until the war. Now, the battle between Shiites and Sunnis has created a civil war in Iraq. Beginning this morning, MSNBC will refer to the fighting in Iraq as a civil war, a phrase the White House continues to resist. But after careful thought, MSNBC and NBC News decided over the weekend, the terminology is appropriate, as armed militarized factions fight for their own political agendas. Well have a lots more on the situation in Iraq and the decision to use the phrase, civil war.
Flopping Aces begins to chronicle all the stories attributed to Jamil Hussein:
- 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)
A complete list of every report attributed to Jamil Hussein (61 stories) can be found here.
November 28
The AP responds to the CentCom letter demanding a retraction. First in a letter by John Daniszewski, International Editor, posted at USA Today at 3:54pm ET:
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
At 4:50pm ET Steven Hurst issued this article:
The attack on the small Mustafa Sunni mosque began as worshippers were finishing Friday midday prayers. About 50 unarmed men, many in black uniforms and some wearing ski masks, walked through the district chanting "We are the Mahdi Army, shield of the Shiites."
Fifteen minutes later, two white pickups, a black BMW and a black Opel drove up to the marchers. The suspected Shiite militiamen took automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers from the vehicles. They then blasted open the front of the mosque, dragged six worshippers outside, doused them with kerosene and set them on fire.
This account of one of the most horrific alleged attacks of Iraq's sectarian war emerged Tuesday in separate interviews with residents of a Sunni enclave in the largely Shiite Hurriyah district of Baghdad.
The Associated Press first reported on Friday's incident that evening, based on the account of police Capt. Jamil Hussein and Imad al-Hashimi, a Sunni elder in Hurriyah, who told Al-Arabiya television he saw people who were soaked in kerosene, then set afire, burning before his eyes.
AP Television News also took video of the Mustafa mosque showing a large portion of the front wall around the door blown away. The interior of the mosque appeared to be badly damaged and there were signs of fire.
However, the U.S. military said in a letter to the AP late Monday, three days after the incident, that it had checked with the Iraqi Interior Ministry and was told that no one by the name of Jamil Hussein works for the ministry or as a Baghdad police officer. Lt. Michael B. Dean, a public affairs officer of the U.S. Navy Multi-National Corps-Iraq Joint Operations Center, signed the letter, a text of which was published subsequently on several Internet blogs. The letter also reiterated an earlier statement from the U.S. military that it had been unable to confirm the report of immolation.
The AP received no comment Friday when it first asked the U.S. military for information. It then carried portions of a U.S. military statement Saturday that said the U.S. had been unable to confirm media reports that six Sunni civilians were allegedly dragged out of Friday prayers and burned to death. The U.S. military said that neither police nor coalition forces had reports of such an incident.
The Iraqi Defense Ministry later said that al-Hashimi, the Sunni elder in Hurriyah, had recanted his account of the attack after being visited by a representative of the defense minister.
The dispute comes at a time when the military is taking a more active role in dealing with the media.
The AP reported on Sept. 26 that a Washington-based firm, the Lincoln Group, had won a two-year contract to monitor reporting on the Iraq conflict in English-language and Arabic media outlets.
That contract succeeded one held by another Washington firm, The Rendon Group. Controversy had arisen around the Lincoln Group in 2005 when it was disclosed that it was part of a U.S. military operation to pay Iraqi newspapers to run positive stories about U.S. military activities.
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.
On Tuesday, two AP reporters also went back to the Hurriyah neighborhood around the Mustafa mosque and found three witnesses who independently gave accounts of the attack. Others in the neighborhood said they were afraid to talk about what happened.
Those who would talk said the assault began about 2:15 p.m., and they believed the attackers were from the Mahdi Army militia loyal to radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. He and the Shiite militia are deeply rooted in and control the Sadr City enclave in northeastern Baghdad where suspected Sunni insurgents attacked with a series of car bombs and mortar shells, killing at least 215 people a day before.
The witnesses refused to allow the use of their names because they feared retribution either from the original attackers or the police, whose ranks are infiltrated by Mahdi Army members or its associated death squads.
Two of the witnesses — a 45-year-old bookshop owner and a 48-year-old neighborhood grocery owner — gave nearly identical accounts of what happened. A third, a physician, said he saw the attack on the mosque from his home, saw it burning and heard people in the streets screaming that people had been set on fire. All three men are Sunni Muslims.
The two other witnesses said the mosque assault began in earnest about 2:30 p.m. after the arrival of the four vehicles filled with arms. They said the attackers fired into the mosque, then entered and set it on fire.
Then, the witnesses said, the attackers brought out six men, blindfolded and handcuffed, and lined them up on the street at the gate of the mosque. The witnesses said the six were doused with kerosene from a 1.3-gallon canister and set on fire at intervals, one after the other, with a torch made of rags. The fifth and sixth men in the line were set afire at the same time.
The witnesses said the burning victims rolled on the ground in agony until apparently dead, then the gunmen fired a single bullet into each of their heads.
The witnesses said residents, in the meantime, had taken up arms and began a gunbattle with the suspected militiamen that raged in the neighborhood until 4 p.m. They said eight to 10 gunmen were killed and left in the streets. Iraqi law allows each household to own an AK-47 assault rife for protection.
One witness said he and other people from the neighborhood took the six immolation victims to the Sunni cemetery near Baghdad's Abu Ghraib suburb and buried them after the gunbattle. That witness said one of the victims was the Mustafa mosque muezzin or prayer caller, Ahmed al-Mashadani. He did not know the names of the five others, but said they were all members of the al-Mashadani tribe.
Notice that the first response stated the story was verified via hospital and morgue workers, while the latter article stated the bodies were immediately buried.
November 29
CentCom emails with news that the MoI in Iraq will announce that Capt. Jamil Hussein does not exist:
From: MNC-I PAO Victory Main JOC [1]
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 9:14 AM
To: [deleted]
Cc: MNC-I PAO Victory Main JOC
Subject: RE: [U] RE: Could you confirm that the letter below was sent by CENTCOM
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Sir:
I have just learned from Mr. Costlow, mentioned below, that Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the official Ministry of Interior spokesmen, will begin his regularly scheduled press conference at noon tomorrow with a statement that Capt. Jamil Hussein, is not a Baghdad police officer or an MOI employee.
Yesterday, coincidently, the Iraqi Ministry of Interior issued a press release warning of spreading propaganda aimed at broadcasters. The text of this statement follows:
A Statement from the Ministry of Interior
After media became free in Iraq and expressed the will of all without the government interfering, unfortunately, some satellite TV channels began misleading public opinion and disclosing chaos for a particular political agenda, by broadcasting propaganda that harms people and tries to shake the trust in security forces.
Such satellite channels are trying to affect Iraqi unity and claim that information was stated by a security source without mentioning the source. Information sources should be well-known and reliable, and to avoid repeating such unfair actions, MOI warns the media and insists on defending the people's security and safety. MOI will take all immediate preventive procedures against media that broadcast propaganda, because such media intend to repress the will of Iraqis in fighting terror and crime.
We would like to mention that such procedures we do not consider as chaining true free media, but it is a legal defense for Iraqi security and the safety of our people.
If you have any additional questions, please let us know.
Vr,
LT Dean
Michael B. Dean
Lieutenant, U.S. Navy
MNC-I Joint Operations Center
Public Affairs Officer
michael.dean@iraq.centcom.mil
MNCI-PAO-VictoryMainJOC@iraq.centcom.mil
Multinational Corps - Iraq
Public Affairs Office
Bloggers take note of the distance between where the AP reports Jamil Hussein works and where the bodies were burned.
The AP responds to the news that the MoI will announce that Jamil Hussein does not exist:
AP has reported this attack thoroughly and diligently, speaking to police, witnesses and others who would know about the attack. We sent reporters to the area later and found additional eyewitnesses whose stories were consistent. AP's television crew videotaped the entrance to the mosque that showed evidence of an explosion and fire. Our reporter spoke with an officer who had provided AP with reliable information in the past and he confirmed three times that the incident happened. As stated in AP's November 28 news story, this 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." When the U.S. military raised questions about the incident and the officer, we reported their comments, even though they were not at the scene.
Navy Lieutenant Dean's statement seems to suggest that the news media should work solely from a government list of 'authorized sources.' But a free press cultivates a wide range of sources. That's what AP did in this case, as it always does.
Linda M. Wagner
Director of Media Relations and Public Affairs
Associated Press, Corporate Communications
November 30
The MoI went on record denying that any Jamil Hussein exists at any Iraqi police station. Summary given by CentCom:
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Curt:
From CPATT PAO:
BG Abdul-Kareem, the Ministry of Interior Spokesman, went on the record today stating that Capt. Jamil Hussein is not a police officer. He explained the coordinations among MOI, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Defense in attempting to track down these bodies and their joint conclusion was that this was unsubstantiated rumor.
He went on to name several other false sources that have been used recently and appealed to the media to document their news before reporting. He went into some detail about the impact of the press carrying propaganda for the enemies of Iraq and thanked "the friends" who have brought this to their attention.
AP did attend the press conference.
Vr,
LT Dean
Michael B. Dean
Lieutenant, U.S. Navy
MNC-I Joint Operations Center
Public Affairs Officer
Transcript of the press conference here.
The AP responds:
From Kathleen Carroll, Executive Editor, The Associated Press
We are satisfied with our reporting on this incident. If Iraqi and U.S. military spokesmen choose to disregard AP's on-the-ground reporting, that is certainly their choice to make, but it is a puzzling one given the facts.
AP journalists have repeatedly been to the Hurriyah neighborhood, a small Sunni enclave within a larger Shiia area of Baghdad . Residents there have told us in detail about the attack on the mosque and that six people were burned alive during it. Images taken later that day and again this week show a burned mosque and graffiti that says "blood wanted," similar to that found on the homes of Iraqis driven out of neighborhoods where they are a minority. We have also spoken repeatedly to a police captain who is known to AP and has been a reliable source of accurate information in the past and he has confirmed the attack.
By contrast, the U.S. military and Iraqi government spokesmen attack our reporting because that captain's name is not on their list of authorized spokespeople. Their implication that we may have given money to the captain is false. The AP does not pay for information. Period.
Further, the Iraqi spokesman said today that reporting on the such atrocities "shows that the security situation is worse than it really is." He is speaking from a capital city where dozens of bodies are discovered every day showing signs of terrible torture. Where people are gunned down in their cars, dragged from their homes or blown apart in public places every single day.
At the end of the day, we have AP journalists with reporting and images from the actual neighborhood versus official spokesmen saying the story cannot be true because it is damaging and because one of the sources is not on a list of people approved to talk to the press. Good reporting relies on more than government-approved sources.
We stand behind our reporting.
Over the next few days questions about the writers who used Jamil Hussein as a source arise, along with the fact that the New York Times had decided to pass on the Burning Six story since it was highly suspect. New York Times writer Tom Zeller reproduced this email from a writer in Iraq on December 4th:
Hi Tom,
You ask me about what our own reporting shows about this incident. 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. So I mentioned it only in passing in my report.
Best, Ed Wong
December 8
The AP issued the following statement:
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.
Curt at Flopping Aces responds as well as Hot Air, and Confederate Yankee.
December 13
Hot Air discovers another discrepancy with the AP's story: namely, the fact that the story, which had originally stated the bodies were taken to the morgue, had been changed to state that the bodies had been buried immediately:
A few days after Thanksgiving, back when Jamilgate was just starting to break, AP International Editor John Daniszewski issued a statement promising that a new, more complete article on the burning six was forthcoming. Included in the statement: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.The new article hit the wires the next day. Quote:
One witness said he and other people from the neighborhood took the six immolation victims to the Sunni cemetery near Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib suburb and buried them after the gunbattle. That witness said one of the victims was the Mustafa mosque muezzin or prayer caller, Ahmed al-Mashadani. He did not know the names of the five others, but said they were all members of the al-Mashadani tribe.Query: what happened to the hospital and morgue workers? That paragraph strongly implies that the locals took the corpses directly to the graveyard and the article doesn’t so much as mention a hospital or a morgue. How did the AP corroborate the story with workers at those locations if, presumably, they never even saw the bodies?
This AP story published November 24th also notes the same thing:
Two workers at Kazamiyah Hospital also confirmed that bodies from the clashes and immolation had been taken to the morgue at their facility. They refused to be identified by name, saying they feared retribution.
December 14
Eason Jordon offers to pay for Michelle Malkin and Curt from Flopping Aces to visit Iraq and search for Jamil Hussein:
Who is Jamil Hussein? Michelle Malkin is leading the charge for an answer, and she put that question to me in her blog. The AP is in the midst of a public firestorm regarding whether supposed Iraqi police captain Jamil Hussein actually exists and, if so, whether he was a legitimate news source for a disputed November 24 AP-reported story saying Shia thugs in Baghdad "grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive near Iraqi soldiers who did not intervene." The U.S. military, the Iraqi government, and many others insisted the AP story was false and that Jamil Hussein either was fictitious or was not an Iraqi police officer, as asserted in the AP's report. The AP has issued two strong statements defending its initial report and produced fresh statements from witnesses of the alleged crime, but the AP has not produced Jamil Hussein himself.
So the search for Jamil Hussein is on, and rightly so. IraqSlogger's team in Baghdad is working to track him down. If we find him, we'll get back to you with details. If we can't find him, we'll report that, too. If Michelle Malkin wants to join the search in Baghdad, IraqSlogger will pay for her trip, and I'd even be willing to accompany her. Stay tuned.
Michelle Malkin accepts:
I e-mailed my acceptance of Jordan's invitation this morning. No way should we just take the word of they guy who admitted covering up for Saddam Hussein and who resigned from CNN after baselessly slandering the U.S. military (maybe we'll find the Davos tape while we're on the search). Plus, it'll be an incredible opportunity to see Iraq and our troops firsthand. I have many friends, heroes, and contacts there I'd like to meet in person.
I also e-mailed to ask Mr. Jordan whether he would pay for Curt from Flopping Aces, the blogger who first broke open the story and is leading the charge for an answer (see, Jordan got his facts wrong already), to come on the search as well if he is able to do so.
1036am Eastern update: Jordan says he will pay for Curt's trip.
December 15
Lt. Col. Bateman notices another sticking point in the Burning Six Story:
The AP, I should note, in their counterattack against those who questioned their story and sources, said, "It's awfully easy to take pot shots from the safety of a computer keyboard thousands of miles from the chaos of Baghdad." The AP executive who said that did so from New York City, but ya know what? Unlike that AP editor, I know something about Baghdad. Having lived in Iraq for a year (returning this past February, if you all recall), and knowing Baghdad well, one additional thing that has blown my mind about this, and the silence from the majority of the media (except E&P, which is covering the story well), is a simple element of geography.
The AP cites their source as being an officer in the Yarmouk district of Baghdad. Fine. Most people in the U.S. and the world don't know Baghdad's geography. But the question that hit me is "why is somebody in Yarmouk the main quoted source (originally) for a story about events in Hurriyah?"
Yarmouk is a neighborhood on the north side of what many people know as "Route Irish." Between Yarmouk and Hurriyah neighborhood are the districts of Al Andalous and Al Mansoor (parallel w/ each other), above that is Al Mutanabbi, and above that is Al Urubah ... before you get to Hurriyah. It's more than 3 miles away. Now for country folk like me, 3 miles isn't but spitting distance. But in a city of 7 million, like NYC or Baghdad, 3 miles is a huge distance.
In other words, in going to their "normal" source for this story, the AP went to the equivalent of a Brooklyn local police precinct for a story that occurred in northern Yonkers! Hello? What would a cop in Brooklyn know about a crime in Yonkers? That's what doesn't make sense to me. (And why didn't the AP reveal, until challenged, that this source was not from the district where the events allegedly occurred, or even from a neighboring district, but is from a moderately distant part of this 7-million-person city?)
December 17
Marc Danziger at Winds of Change is the first to smell the fact that there is a Jamil Hussein at Yarmouk Station in Baghdad and posts about it at 0058hrs:
With the help of some friends who have been doing a smidgen of looking, and it appears - appears, but is not certain - that there is in fact a Jamail Hussein in the Yarmouk police station in Baghdad. We’ll know more tomorrow.
December 18
Marc Danziger at Winds of Change confirms that there is NO Jamil Hussein at the station but that the AP source is using a alias:
OK, folks, this is what open source is about - you put things out there and the rest of the world improves on them - so here it goes. I think we discovered something, but it turns out probably not to have been useful. Sorry about that, but as they say, there are no failed experiments.
After talking about this on Friday, I used some old contacts to call friends in Baghdad on Saturday. We (friends and I) have contacts there through major local Iraqi news orgs there - specifically Al Sabah. They have the ability/credentials to move around, ask questions where others don't.
So, after some calls, IMs, and e-mail we get a call back by Sat night (California time)/Sunday morning (Baghdad time); there is no Capt. Jamil Hussein at Yarmouk, but there is a Sergeant by that name, with a somewhat dubious reputation (worked directly under Uday, Baathist remnant, etc.). So, we checked further, because, after all, I want to be certain before I start throwing too many things around, and it takes a different type and level of checking to have anything like confidence there than it does here to have something close to certainty - and be sure that we'll be talking about that a bit later.
Reporters from Al Sabah agreed to go interview the superior officer at the police station. They were on the phone at 4:30 am PST today, and they had gone to Karrada and established there is no Jamail Hussein there (would have been unlikely since Karrada is mostly Shiite, and in fact is mostly the power zone of SCIRI, Hakeem has his HQ there - and the Sgt at Yarmouk was obviously Sunni). Information then came in that there is a Colonel Jamail Hussein working at Abu Gharib. (Via sources at the Interior Ministry.)
Now, what we know is that there is no Captain by this name, so we presumed that it is likely that it was an alias. The question was whether it someone who'd dissembled about his name or about his rank? And why didn't anyone else turn up these guys?
Michelle Malkin then posted that her source at CentCom had confirmed that the AP source is at the Yarmouk station under a different name, Captain Jamil Ghdaab. Soon after she retracted the post due to her source NOT confirming the information prior to giving it to Michelle.
December 19
The AP changed the wording of their original response to this story dated November 28th (see November 28 entry above) on their website and took out the fact that they verified the original story via hospital and morgue workers. The original paragraph:
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.
And the new version:
AP reporters who have been working in Iraq throughout the conflict learned of the mosque incident through witnesses and later corroborated it with police.
December 20
Michelle Malkin and Flopping Aces both learn through CPATT sources that there is NO Jamil Hussein working at either Yarmouk or al Khadra police stations:
After receiving initial reports from a Civilian Police Advisory Training Team (CPATT) source two days ago and investigating further, here’s what I can tell you:
According to two CPATT officials–one in the U.S, one in Iraq–there is no one named “Jamil Hussein” working now or ever at either at the Yarmouk or al Khadra police stations. That is what they have said all along and nothing has changed.
The Baghdad-based CPATT officer says there is no “Sgt. Jamil Hussein” at Yarmouk, which contradicts what Marc Danziger’s contacts found. I have another military source on the ground who works with the Iraqi Army (separate and apart from the CPATT sources) and is checking into whether anyone named “Jamil Hussein” has ever worked at Yarmouk.
There is only one police officer whose first name is “Jamil” currently working at the Khadra station, according to my CPATT sources.
His name is Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim (alternate spelling per CPATT is “Ghulaim.”) Previously, Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim worked at a precinct in Yarmouk, according to the CPATT sources.
Both recognize the name of Jamil as being similar to the AP's response of on November 28th, written by John Daniszewski:
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.
Michelle writes:
Let’s review: AP’s source, supposedly named “Jamil Gholaiem Hussein,” used to work at Yarmouk but now works at al Khadra. CPATT says the one person named “Jamil” now at al Khadra — Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim — also used to work at Yarmouk. His rank is the same as that of AP’s alleged source. His last name is almost identical to the middle name of AP’s alleged source. (FYI: In Arabic, the middle name is one’s father’s name; the last name is one’s grandfather’s.)
According to the CPATT officers, Captain Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim “denies ever speaking to the AP or any other media.” I retracted information to the contrary two days ago based on a single CPATT source who said he had erroneously stated that Gulaim had admitted being the source.
To repeat: Both CPATT sources in the U.S. and Iraq have confirmed that Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim denies speaking to the AP.
December 21
Michelle Malkin receives confirmation that the Jamil in question at Yarmouk station denies being the AP source:
Meanwhile, my CPATT sources informed me today that MOI officials have now questioned Captain Jamil Ghlaim at MOI headquarters. Ghlaim continues to deny speaking to AP or any other media outlet.
December 22
Curt at Flopping Aces receives more confirmation that Jamil Ghlaim denies being the source:
That CPATT source wrote me also and stated that the guy is so emphatic that he has never contacted nor spoke with the AP that he said:"I am challenging any one can prove by recording or film that I did that"
December 27
Bob at Confederate Yankee notices another discrepancy in the initial AP reporting of the Burning Six story:
In the detailed follow-up account to the initial "burning six" story AP insisted:Two workers at Kazamiyah Hospital also confirmed that bodies from the clashes and immolation had been taken to the morgue at their facility. They refused to be identified by name, saying they feared retribution.This is a damn fine trick. According to Iraqi Brigadier General Abdul-Kareem, (via an email exchange with MNC-I PAO) their is no morgue at Kazamiyah Hospital. Any dead at Kazamiyah Hospital are transported by the police to the Medical Jurisprudence Center at Bab Almadham.
Which SeeDubya at Hot Air believes is the reason for the change in wording of the November 28th AP response to delete any reference to a morgue:
Think that’s a pretty good catch, huh? Maybe the AP caught it themselves, because on November 28th, when they re-visited Hurriya after more challenges, this is what a witness told them:One witness said he and other people from the neighborhood took the six immolation victims to the Sunni cemetery near Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib suburb and buried them after the gunbattle. That witness said one of the victims was the Mustafa mosque muezzin or prayer caller, Ahmed al-Mashadani. He did not know the names of the five others, but said they were all members of the al-Mashadani tribe.Is this how the AP corrects its stories? Whether there is a morgue at Kazamiyah hospital or not, the destination of the bodies changed within three days, without notice or explanation. Why would we presume this witness–supposedly one of their two anonymous eyewitnesses to the burning–is any more reliable than the fellow who said the bodies went into the morgue at Kazamiyah hospital? Which of the AP’s sources lied to them?
January 4, 2007
The AP issues a article in which they state that the Iraqi MoI has now acknowledged that Jamil Hussein exists:
Iraq threatens arrest of police captain who spoke to media
By STEVEN R. HURST
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The Interior Ministry acknowledged Thursday that an Iraqi police officer whose existence had been denied by the Iraqis and the U.S. military is in fact an active member of the force, and said he now faces arrest for speaking to the media.
Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press.
The captain, whose full name is Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, was one of the sources for an AP story in late November about the burning and shooting of six people during a sectarian attack at a Sunni mosque.
The U.S. military and the Iraqi Interior Ministry raised the doubts about Hussein in questioning the veracity of the AP's initial reporting on the incident, and the Iraqi ministry suggested that many news organization were giving a distorted, exaggerated picture of the conflict in Iraq. Some Internet bloggers spread and amplified these doubts, accusing the AP of having made up Hussein's identity in order to disseminate false news about the war.
Khalaf offered no explanation Thursday for why the ministry had initially denied Hussein's existence, other than to state that its first search of records failed to turn up his full name. He also declined to say how long the ministry had known of its error and why it had made no attempt in the past six weeks to correct the public record.
Hussein was not the original source of the disputed report of the attack; the account was first told on Al-Arabiya satellite television by a Sunni elder, Imad al-Hashimi, who retracted it after members of the Defense Ministry paid him a visit. Several neighborhood residents subsequently gave the AP independent accounts of the Shiite militia attack on a mosque in which six people were set on fire and killed.
Khalaf told the AP that an arrest warrant had been issued for the captain for having contacts with the media in violation of the ministry's regulations.
Hussein told the AP on Wednesday that he learned the arrest warrant would be issued when he returned to work on Thursday after the Eid al-Adha holiday. His phone was turned off Thursday and he could not be reached for further comment.
Hussein appears to have fallen afoul of a new Iraqi push, encouraged by some U.S. advisers, to more closely monitor the flow of information about the country's violence, and strictly enforce regulations that bar all but authorized spokesmen from talking to media.
During Saddam Hussein's rule, information in Iraq had been fiercely controlled by the Information Ministry, but after the arrival of U.S. troops in 2003 and during the transition to an elected government in 2004, many police such as Hussein felt freer to talk to journalists and give information as it occurred.
As a consequence, most news organizations working in Iraq have maintained Iraqi police contacts routinely in recent years. Some officers who speak with reporters withhold their names or attempt to disguise their names using different variants of one or two middle names or last names for reasons of security. Hussein, however, spoke for the record, using his authentic first and last name, on numerous occasions.
His first contacts with the AP were in 2004, when the current Interior Ministry and its press apparatus was still being formed out of the chaotic remains of the Saddam-era ministry.
The information he provided about various police incidents was never called into question until he became embroiled in the attempt to discredit the AP story about the Hurriyah mosque attack.
Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said Thursday that the military had asked the Interior Ministry on Nov. 26 if it had a policeman by the name of Jamil Hussein. Two days later, U.S. Navy Lt. Michael B. Dean, a public affairs officer with the U.S. Navy Multi-National Corps-Iraq Joint Operations Center, sent an e-mail to AP in Baghdad saying that the military had checked with the Iraqi Interior Ministry and was told that no one by the name of Jamil Hussein worked for the ministry or was a Baghdad police officer.
Dean also demanded that the mosque attack story be retracted.
The text of the Dean letter appeared quickly on several Internet blogs, prompting heated debate about the story and criticism of the AP.
At the weekly Interior Ministry briefing on Nov. 30, Khalaf cited the AP story as an example of why the ministry had decided to form a special unit to monitor news coverage and vowed to take legal action against journalists who failed to correct stories the ministry deemed to be incorrect.
At the time Khalaf said the ministry had no one on its staff by the name of Jamil Hussein.
"Maybe he wore an MOI (Ministry of Interior) uniform and gave a different name to the reporter for money," Khalaf said then. The AP has not paid Jamil Hussein and does not pay any news sources for information for its stories.
On Thursday, Khalaf told AP that the ministry at first had searched its files for Jamil Hussein and found no one. He said a later search turned up Capt. Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, assigned to the Khadra police station.
But the AP had already identified the captain by all three names in a story on Nov. 28 -- two days before the Interior Ministry publicly denied his existence on the police rolls.
Khalaf did not say whether the U.S. military had ever been told that Hussein in fact exists. Garver, the U.S. military spokesman, said Thursday that he was not aware that the military had ever been told.
Khalaf said Thursday that with the arrest of Hussein for breaking police regulations against talking to reporters, the AP would be called to identify him in a lineup as the source of its story.
Should the AP decline to assist in the identification, Khalaf said, the case against Hussein would be dropped. He also said there were no plans to pursue action against the AP should it decline.
He said police officers sign a pledge not to talk to reporters when they join the force. He did not explain why Jamil Hussein had become an issue now, given that he had been named by AP in dozens of news reports dating back to early 2006. Before that, he had been a reliable source of police information since 2004 but had not been quoted by name.
January 6
Curt at Flopping Aces received information from a CPATT source that Jamil Hussein did not use Hussein as his last name:
Curt,
Here's what I can tell you:
1. Media reports about Jamil didn't use his name as he is known at work so we had trouble finding him (Jamil Gulaim as opposed to Jamil Hussein: the initial query we got from MNFI was for "Jamil Hussein").
January 9
The CPATT source further updates that AP used the wrong name in their January 4th article (Jamil Gholaiem Hussein):
The AP has been citing Cpt Jamil Hussein Gulaim. The police officer's actual name is "Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim".
Apparently the AP accepts this as the source in question (see their article and also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamil_Hussein)
I guess the real answer here is that if the AP had used his correct name to begin with, the MOI could have responded faster.
January 10
The CPATT source updates the name of the source after looking at his personnel record:
Curt,
Seems like every time I talk to somebody about this guy, his name changes. His personnel record says his name is: Jamil Gulaim (Redacted).
Spokesman BG Abdul-Kareem has spoken with members of the AP in Baghdad and has confirmation that he is their source. That said, CPT Jamil still denies ever speaking to them.
As far as the MOI is concerned, CPT Jamil gave the AP bad information: there's still no evidence the six murders occurred.
V/R
Bill
His last name was redacted by Curt and other bloggers after they decided that printing his real name could be dangerous to him.
January 11
Curt at Flopping Aces asks his CPATT source how the Iraqi MoI could confirm that Jamil Gulaim (Redacted) was the AP source if Jamil Gulaim (Redacted) denies being that source:
Appreciate the help Bill. I still don't understand how the BG could confirm he is the source if he denies being the source tho.There has been some sideline discussion between MOI PA and the AP. We're at a point where the MOI needs to look to the future and establish a new relationship with the AP -- hopefully it'll be a friendship that enables them to avoid issues like this in the future.
V/R
Bill
January 21
Michelle Malkin returns from trip to Iraq and updates the story in the New York Post in which she writes that the damage to the Mosques done by the attack on November 24th was not anywhere as extensive as the AP first reported:
January 21, 2007 -- WELL, the Iraqi Ministry of Interior says disputed Associated Press source Jamil Hussein does exist. But at least one story he told the AP just doesn't check out: The Sunni mosques that as Hussein claimed and AP reported as "destroyed," "torched" and "burned and [blown] up" are all still standing. So the credibility of every AP story relying on Jamil Hussein remains dubious.
Let's take it from the beginning.
When the AP ran its head- line-grabbing and horrifying account of alleged atrocities in Baghdad last Thanksgiving, its main source was an Iraqi police captain, one Jamil Hussein.
Bloggers led by Curt of Flopping Aces (floppingaces.net) raised questions about the veracity and existence of Hussein and the information he supplied to the AP. U.S. military officials and the Iraqi government initially disputed that Hussein was employed as a legitimate police officer.
After several weeks of stonewalling by its news executives, the AP published a report quoting an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman who reversed course and verified Hussein's existence and employment. Left-wing blogs and mainstream-media outlets crowed - eagerly proclaiming the death of the conservative blogosphere's credibility and declaring the matter settled.
AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll indignantly attacked those who had questioned the global news organization's reporting: "I never quite understood why people chose to disbelieve us about this particular man on this particular story," she told Editor and Publisher. "AP runs hundreds of stories a day, and has run thousands of stories about things that have happened in Iraq."
Well, Bryan Preston and I visited the area during our Iraq trip last week. Several mosques did, in fact, come under attack by Mahdi Army forces. But the "destroyed" mosques all still stand. Iraqi and U.S. Army officials say that two of them received no fire damage whatsoever. Another, which we filmed, was abandoned and empty when it was attacked.
WE obtained summary reports and photos filed at the time by Iraqi and U.S. Army troops on the scene. They contain no corroborating evidence of Hussein's claim that "Shiite militiamen grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive near Iraqi soldiers who did not intervene."
One of the mosques identified by the AP, the Nidaa Alah mosque, had been abandoned and vacant at the time it was hit with small-arms fire, say Iraqi and U.S. Army officials. Two of its inside rooms were burned out by a lobbed firebomb, according to an Army report.
Three other mosques in the area - the al Muhaymin, al Mushahiba and Ahbab Mustafa mosques - sustained small-arms fire damage to their exteriors; the Mustafa mosque also had two rooms burned out by a firebomb.
Contrary to Hussein and the AP's account, military reports note that Iraqi Army battalion members were on the scene - pursuing attackers, securing the area, calling the fire department, providing support and an outer cordon.
Neither The New York Times nor The Washington Post was able to confirm AP's story.
The AP quoted one corroborating witness, Imad al-Hasimi, a Sunni elder in Hurriya, who "confirmed Hussein's account" of the immolated Sunnis on Al-Arabiya television. When Al-Hasimi later recanted, AP implied that it was due to pressure from Iraqi government officials. The other possibility: He recanted because it wasn't true.
Capt. Aaron Kaufman of Task Force Justice, which works closely with the Iraqi Army battalion that was on the scene and monitored events as they happened, told us: "It was blown way out of proportion, there was nobody lit on fire."
Capt. Stacy Bare, the civil-affairs officer who took us on patrol in Hurriya, concurred: "There were no six Sunnis burned."
MURDERS do happen regularly in their area, the soldiers em phasized. And no one sugarcoated the brutality of the Shiite militia. But the soldiers say this particular story doesn't stand up.
And if this one doesn't, how many others don't? As AP exec Carroll herself said, "AP runs hundreds of stories a day, and has run thousands of stories about things that have happened in Iraq." Jamil Hussein supplied the AP with information for scores of stories, not just this faulty one. Rumor-based reporting serves no one's interests but those who would see Iraq fail.
Lt. Col. Steven Miska, commander of the Dagger Brigade at Forward Operating Base Justice, observed: "Part of it is, if you're relying on Iraqi reporters, well, what are their biases? What clans are they from and tribes? Why are they telling me this? What's his underlying motivation? And if you quote a police chief, well, those guys have underlying motivations, too . . ."
"I've gone out and found police chiefs on the street and said, 'What happened here?' Something just blew up and he told me, 'Well, U.S. airplanes just bombed this building.'
"I said, 'What are you talking about? It was freakin' insurgent rockets that just hit the building, I picked them up on radar.' " But he just told the reporter on the street that U.S. warplanes bombed the building and killed 13 people.
"So, rumors on the street Iraqis will take at face value. Trying to get them to do investigations is like pulling teeth out of their head."
MANY Iraqis lie to survive. Rumor is the common national dialect that unites the country's warring sects and tribes. Sunni journalists carry multiple ID cards to disguise themselves. Shiite Iraqi Army members hide their day jobs - changing into uniform only after arriving on base.
Deception and manipulation are also tools of the insurgent trade. Satellites, cellphones and Internet cafes aid insurgent and militia propaganda wars 24/7.
It behooves the Western media to acknowledge these realities and maintain as much transparency about their sources and local stringers as possible.
February 16
Bob at Confederate Yankee receives confirmation that the Iraqi MoI Interior Minister never confirmed with the AP that their source was named Jamil Hussein:
This morning, Civilian Police Assistance Training Team (CPATT) liason to the Iraqi Interior Ministry, Bill Costlow, provided me this morning with a direct quote from the above referenced Brigadier General Abdul-Karim Khalaf regarding Jamil Hussein. This statement flatly contradicts what Steven R. Hurst claimed BG Abdul-Karim Khalaf said in his January 4th article.
Brigadier General Abdul-Karim Khalaf stated:“We couldn’t identify CPT Jamil right away because the AP used the wrong name: we couldn’t find a “CPT Jamil Hussein” — but later, when we saw the name “Jamil Gulaim Hussein”, it became obvious that they were talking about CPT Jamil Gulaim Innad XX XXXXXXX [Name redacted for security reasons — Editor]” as the only ‘Jamil Gulaim’ assigned there (ever) and whose assignment records show he previously worked in Yarmouk, as also reported by the AP. Since the issue for us is the release of false news into the media, we’re satisfied that the AP is no longer quoting a questionable source.”The General flatly states that Jamil Hussein is not Jamil Hussein as AP still contends, but is instead, CPT Jamil Gulaim Innad XX XXXXXXX.
A previous email sent to several bloggers from Costlow on January 11, 2007, stated that that the Associated Press reporters who had interviewed Abdul-Karim Khalaf prior to Hurst’s January 4th article verified to him that CPT Jamil Gulaim Innad XX XXXXXXX was the Associated Press source.
This seems to directly contradict all present and previous AP claims that Associated Press reporters knew Jamil Hussein as Jamil Gholaiem Hussein. Instead it indicates that they knew at some point prior to the Hurst article being published, that Jamil Gulaim Innad XX XXXXXXX was the actual name of their source.
External Links
Jamil Hussein Story Archive -- Flopping Aces blog
