Will the Real Jamil Please Stand Up

CFBleachers, a guest blogger at Flopping Aces has posted a detailed summary of the Story of Jamil – Fake, but Accurate:

This being my first foray into guest blogging at Curt’s site, I want to make sure that I put all the proper pieces in all the right places. And I am going to pick a subject that continues to cause me the most irritation. There appears to be slipping into the current lexicon of everyone commenting on the “Jamilgate” story, a certain lax attitude toward his “proven existence”.

I think it’s high time we get this straight once and for all…Jamil Hussein does not exist. The guy playing Jamil Hussein exists. There is a difference and it serves only the AP and their apologists and fellow travelers of distortion to keep referencing his existence as jamil.

Eason Jordan was the first out of the gate to my knowledge in attempting to carve half a loaf out for the AP’s credibility and pass along the glossed over reality about Jamil’s existence.
On January 5th, he posted a post that was titled:

“The Jamil Hussein Fuss: All Sullied Mistakes, Lessons Learned, Lingering Questions”

Except for my money, he points out the wrong mistakes, tries to get the usual moral equivalency argument into play, doesn’t really learn the real lesson and asks the wrong questions.

Jordan starts out with the following:

“The Associated Press and the AP’s supporters surely are breathing a sigh of relief now that the Iraqi Interior Ministry has confirmed to the AP that elusive Iraqi Police Captain Jamil Hussein is genuine. This comes six weeks after Iraqi and U.S. officials insisted the frequent AP news source, Captain Hussein, was non-existent and that AP reporting attributed to him was baseless.”

The problem is, of course…that Jamil Hussein is not genuine by any sane definition of the word, and the AP reporting attributed to him, in many respects is now proven baseless. “Jamil Hussein” did not exist on the rolls, the mosques in question were not destroyed, one of them was already abandoned at the time of alleged incident, no Sunni’s were forcibly removed from the mosque, none were doused in kerosene, nor set on fire, nor shot in the head, nor watched by coalition forces, nor taken to a hospital morgue, or a cemetery. None of the civilians in the story, including women and children were murdered, and their houses were not burned to the ground. Virtually every gruesome aspect that made the story stand out…was false. Yet what does Jordan ask us to do? Why take OUR share of the blame, of course…because we simply didn’t believe.

“All the key players in the Jamil Hussein controversy have been sullied in this process.” “Iraqi officials and U.S. military spokesmen look foolish for making the mistake of flatly stating in late November that there was no Iraqi police captain by the name of Jamil Hussein. Those clumsy, baseless statements were unfair to the AP. Those erroneous statements — and their statements questioning the information the AP attributed to Captain Hussein — triggered the six-week-long controversy that followed.”

Oh, really? They were asked to search the records for “Jamil Hussein” a police captain in one of two districts. (neither of which, by the way….are within the confines of virtually EVERY SINGLE INCIDENT of the 61 in which he is used as the “source”)

“Jamil Hussein made a mistake by waiting six weeks to speak out on this matter.”

Please pardon me, I missed the part where “Jamil Hussein” spoke out on this matter. Some guy named JGXX spoke out and said he was NOT the AP’s source. How exactly does that comport with the statement above? The statement above leads the unwitting reader to assume facts not only not in evidence, but facts that are utterly false and misleading.

“Another mistake: the AP took too long to provide irrefutable evidence of Captain Hussein’s existence.”

Again, please pardon me…when did this happen? I haven’t heard a peep out of them when it was brought to light that JGXX is actually the guy’s name. In fact, they insisted that Jamil Hussein is his real name and that he used his real name, when other lesser “sources” dared not. Either this guy is JGXX or he isn’t.

“The AP’s most strident critics were wrong to accept the word of U.S. and Iraqi officials as the absolute truth while dismissing the AP’s sourcing, stories, and explanations as outright lies.”

Ahhhhh. Don’t you love the smell of moral equivalency in the morning? The AP’s “sourcing” utilizing “Jamil Hussein” for events outside his district dozens of times…is still in question. And their explanations, such as they were…were intentionally misleading and by every reasonable deduction, the equivalent of painting a false picture and distorting the truth. To make it absolutely clear…Jamil Hussein is not his name, he had no knowledge of events outside his district that made him anywhere near a reliable source and by all appearances, he was simply the mouthpiece for subsources passing along whisper campaigns and urban legends.

“In the end, the AP did the right thing — proving Jamil Hussein’s existence — but in the wrong time frame.”

Let’s get this straight. No such thing has ever happened. And it’s high time we stop acting as if it did. Some people are wont to suggest that “a guy” existed and that’s enough. Sorry. That’s simply wrong. Once they began using him as the ubersource, for virtually every event in every district around Baghdad, who he was, how he knew what they were vouching that he knew as their “official” police source…then who he is and was, is in play.

When they upped the ante by suggesting that he used his real name, while other lesser sources dared not, they eliminated the defense that they were using a pseudonym for him to protect him. As it stands now, he is neither a viable or proper source, his name is not Jamil Hussein, the stories attributed to him are not worthy of belief on their face and the AP has failed TO PROVE OTHERWISE.

The AP has been found to have foisted a non-reliable person upon the reading public, who as it turns out is virtually 180 degrees opposite from what they intentionally misled the reading public to believe. He is not someone with the full force of “official knowledge” about events on the ground, he is NOT a person who was using his “real name” while others dared not, he is not someone upon whom we can rely to give us unbiased, unslanted, accounts of “facts” on the ground. He is not a “source” by any reasonable definition of the word. He is not even “Jamil Hussein”.
All that the AP has “proven”, is that it will use parsed language to disguise who their sources are and what they “know”, how they come to their “information” and when caught, what they knew and when they knew it, when a “source” is found to be unreliable.

What they have “proven” is they will cover up, stonewall and obfuscate. And their fellow travelers have fallen strangely silent.

Let’s not let their silence fool us. Their “message” is still making its way into our lexicon. And we, at least…should be vigilant with the truth. For us, the truth is more important than than the leftist message. Let’s not make ourselves voluntary slaves to that leftist message.

Free Jamil Gholaiem Hussein

Curt responds to the New York Times :

For bloggers who believe that the media has been drawing false pictures of mayhem in Iraq, the insistence of the American military and Iraqi officials that the burning incident appeared to be a mere rumor was proof that their suspicions were correct. “Getting the News From the Enemy” was how the Flopping Aces blog (floppingaces.net) tracked the developing face-off between the military and A.P.

Iraq’s interior ministry wielded the article like a bludgeon and used it as an opportunity to create a press monitoring unit that suggested, in no uncertain terms, that reporters in Baghdad should come to its press officers for “real, true news.” A ministry spokesman promised “legal action” — whatever that might mean — against journalists who publish information the agency deemed wrong.

That may seem patently absurd.

Curt nails the NY Times rebuke to the wall with the following remarks:

Now that my friends is called spin. The Iraqi’s set up a unit so that the press could be assured that the official spokesmen that these reporters like to quote so much are in fact who they say they are. What’s absurd is the notion that this wrong and somehow restricting their freedoms. Is it too much to ask that the media quote REAL police officers?

Yeah, so ludicrous that they still cannot prove to anyone that Capt. Jamil Hussein is a living breathing person because we sure the hell know that he is no police Capt. Is ludicrous that the AP even expects us to swallow this crap. The author of this article fails to note that when the reporters went back they found 3 witnesses, all unnamed. How convenient. It’s also convenient that the bodies are already buried. It’s convenient that even the family members of the supposed dead can’t be found. All they have is 3 unnamed witnesses, 1 witness who recanted, and a imaginary police Captain.

The agenda is to force our MSM to own up to their partisan and biased reporting…..period.

ANY QUESTIONS?

AP: Punked by Jamil?

AP: We stand behind our reporting.

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

Michelle Malkin requested and received a more detailed transcript of the weekly report of from Iraq’s Ministry of Interior:

Ministry of Interior Weekly Press Conference

Thursday, November 30, 2006
By Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf Al-Kenani
Ministry of Interior spokesman

Press conference synopsis:

1. Media, especially satellite news channels, must adhere to
responsible practices:

a. MOI is monitoring coverage, and will insist on corrections to
false reports.

b. Unnamed sources should not be used. Two recently named sources
do not work for MOI. Contact MOI PAO for official information.

c. Rumors are rampant, and media should be careful to check with
official sources about information to avoid spreading false rumors.

2. MOI succeeded in a number of operations against terrorists in
Baghdad.

a. The Baghdad Sniper was apprehended, and information gained from
him led to the arrest of 30 others in his organization.

b. Two unauthorized “courts” that had issued death fatwas were
broken up.

c. A kidnapping cell, including one that raped a young girl, was
arrested.

Statement:

This press conference will cover MOI operations from Nov. 23 to 29, 2006.

Before we start the weekly briefing, I have some points to highlight and to remind the brothers that work in the media, especially the Satellite television Channels. We meant by this note to stress the ministry of interior’s intention that we believe in free press and truthful press, in order not to confuse what the free press presents and the misleading media show, where the latter’s intention is to make the situation in Iraq worse than what it is.

The press release issued by the ministry of interior has three main points: First, a warning to the satellite TV. Channels continue broadcasting false news, and based on that we have formed a special observation room to monitor these TV stations; the purpose of this unit is to determine the fabricated and false news that hurts and gives the Iraqis a wrong picture that the security situation is very bad, when the facts are totally different.

After the monitoring process, we will contact those TV stations by presenting them with the mistakes and errors they committed by broadcasting such false news, hoping they will correct these false reports on their main news programs. But if they do not change those lying, false stories, then we will seek legal action against them.

For example, we have some of the respected news outlets that deal with news fast and have a relation with many TV channels and the media in general, who distributed a story quoting a person called Jamil Hussein. Afterward, we searched our sources in our staff for anyone by this name– maybe he wore an MOI uniform and gave a different name to the reporter for money. And the second name used is Lt. Maythem.

However, all of you know that the ministry of interior has a large public affairs office and its official spokesman, and we are ready to answer any questions you may have. Therefore, you should contact MOI PAO for all your needs to get real, true news. Based on that, we strongly deny any relation with those two names. In order to serve you better and strengthen the relationship with MOI, do not take statements that have no meaning and do not represent any official. We would like this note to be helpful to you and any statement made by those persons to be ignored.

The second subject is rumors. The ministry received in a week more than 12 cases of claims, one stating 50 killed were there, 200 kidnapped here, 30 corpses found there etc. And when we dispatched our forces and investigators to the locations, we found nothing.

On this note, I would like to thank some of the brothers in the media who are cautious and take the extra step to make sure the news he gets is correct or not, by contacting the ministry to verify any news through us that they hear or receive. Not only (do we reply), but we also give them more detail than they expected, and we hope others will follow suit. Also, we ask our people, please do not take any news or give it credibility, except from a well-known source with a name and an address that is part of the security ministries, etc., such as a minister or police station commander. Or if it is from the MOD or MOI, the name of the officer, his rank, his unit, etc. It is not enough to say “a source from the ministry of interior.”

Doing otherwise, you will end up helping the spread of the rumors and make them reality, even thought it was a false rumor. This rumor business — if a large issue, it will take a long time to cover it, but the purpose of the rumors is to disrupt life and make the security apparatus busy with other things than its main tasks. We will end up following rumors instead of hunting terrorists and criminals.

The third subject is, this week the strikes we made against the al-Qaeda terrorist organization in Baghdad were many and very strong in Baghdad. Before my arrival to this press conference, I was informed that one of the three who were just captured or detained is Mazer Al-Jubouri, aka the Baghdad Sniper, and his group. He admitted many things that are very important and very dangerous and our forces used this information about his network and conducted raids in the past 24 hours and detained 30 terrorists.

Those terrorists executed several explosions in Palestine and Beirut streets, and the New Baghdad area. He also admitted that their base is in Diyala province, which supplied them with money, weapons and explosives. They are now under investigation and we think this cell or network has been dismantled.

This week also, we dismantled what are called “courts” in northern and southern Baghdad, and detained the two persons who issued fatwas to kill the people. Our force dismantled what is called the Omar network, this criminal network that used to exercise its criminal activities in southern Baghdad. And they admitted many things about other terrorist networks and our forces are pursuing them now, as well as other networks for kidnapping.

One of them, we regret, kidnapped a girl and used narcotics on her and raped this little innocent young girl. We captured those criminals and the little girl is receiving medical attention. This is not Iraqis’ culture. Just look how far down in debasement they have traveled. With regret, I told you that, because MOI activity does not hold in the media the position it deserves, and also to show the great sacrifice by MOI this week.

Curt has summarized the rebuttal from the AP as follows:

Typically they ignore the bigger point here. There is absolutely NO proof that this incident occured. They first told the world that four mosques were burnt to the ground and six men were burned alive. Then when they discovered (via Centcom and us bloggers) that four mosques were not burned, only one was and that one slightly, they changed the original story. They relied 3 sources who will not go on record, two that will. One of those has retracted his statement and the other (Jamil Hussein) has been shown to have lied about his employment.

The AP has no other evidence that this event occured.

I’d like to add the AP’s reply contained sneering remarks alluding to the legitimacy of the Iraqi Government. I find this to be the height of liberal arrogance:The AP breathlessly reprints quotes from its ‘sources’ without hesitiation – yet is quick to question and deride any findings by the Iraqi government. Hmmm…no bias here!

Et Tu, John Street?

Philadelphia – It was a somber and sad Mayor John Street yesterday who faced the bright lights, flashing bulbs and hot questions of reporters in the wake of his older brother’s federal indictment on charges of fraud, bribery and filing false tax returns.

Milton Street traded on his last name to obtain lucrative city contracts and failed to pay taxes on more than $2 million in income, federal authorities charged yesterday. They additionally allege Milton Street conspired with John H. Velardi, facilities director for Philadelphia Airport Services, a business set up in 2001 specifically to bid on airport maintenance contracts, and Matthias Schwabe, PAS facilities manager to defraud PAS and at least two other businesses.