Controversy Over AP Reporting on attack on Mustafa Mosque in Baghdad

November 24th, 2006 : AP reports that Shiite militiamen burned six Sunnis alive at a mosque in the Hurriyah district in Baghdad.  The article prominently cites Police Captain Jamil Hussein, who says the militamen also blew up four mosques (presumably the mosque where the six men were burned was one of the four).  Right-wing bloggers will later say that there's no evidence that four mosques were blown up.  The article says a Sunni elder named Imad al-Hasimi confirmed the attack, and that two nnamed workers at Kazamiyah Hospial confirmed that bodies "from the clashes and immolation had been taken to the morque at their facility."

(Townhall writer Katherine Ham says that earlier versions of the 11/24 AP story didn't quote Hussein, and said that police officials said nothing happened in the Hurriyah district) 

November 25th, 2006 : Blogger "Curt" at "Flopping Aces" says that Jamil Hussein is sourced a lot in articles talking about attacks on Sunnis.

November 28th, 2006 : After right-wing bloggers, the Iraqi interior department, and the US military attack the AP story, the AP comes out with another story .  It reports that al-Hasimi, after being questioned by the Iraqi interior department, had retracted his story. 

AP reporters were able to find three witnesses who lived in the Hurriyah district "who independently gave accounts of the attack."  The three witnesses refused to let their names be revealed in the AP story.  One of the three "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."  This is in conflict with the AP report that they had hospital and morgue workers confirm the report.

In reponse to questions about the authenticity of police captain Jamil Hussein, the AP reported that it had contacted him for the third time to verify the story.  It gies his full name as Jamil Gholaiem Hussein.

Also on this day, AP International Editor John Daniszewski releases a statement about the attacks on the story.  He defends the use of Jamil Hussein as a source:

" In fact, that captain has long been know to the AP reporters and has had a record of reliability and truthfulness. He has been based at the police station at Yarmouk , and more recently at al-Khadra , another Baghdad district, and has been interviewed by the AP several times at his office and by telephone."

In one version of the statement, Daniszewski repeats that AP reporters confirmed the immolation incident with hospital workers.  In another version , this detail is omitted, perhaps because someone realized the contradiction with the 11/28 AP story. 

November 30, 2006 : The AP releases another statement defending its reporting and its conduct.   

December 1, 2006 : The NYT blog "The Lede" posts a letter from NYT Iraq correspondent Edward Wong, who says he was unable to confirm the immolation incident and asks why hardline Sunni organizations are not speaking out about such an incident. 

December 8, 2006 :  The AP releases a third statement defending its reporting and its conduct.   

December 14th, 2006 : Lefist blogger Eric Alterman posts a letter from military officer/historian Robert Bateman.  Bateman raises several issues with the story, but focuses on the fact that the Yarmouk neighborhood is 3 miles away from the Hurriyah neighborhood (Bateman doesn't seem to be aware that the Deniszewski statement said that Hussein used to be based at Yarmouk, and "more recently" was based in the al-Khadra neighborhood.  According to a map that Bateman links to, al-Khadra is closer to Hurriyah than is Yarmouk, but al-Khadra still seems pretty far away from Hurriyah.

(Bateman is the military historian who says AP writer Charles Hanley tried to suppress his book bout the No Gun Ri incident)

December 18, 2006 : A blogger named Marc "Armed Liberal" Danziger posts that he asked friends in the Al Sabah news organization to track  down Jamil Hussein.  They found that there is a Sergeant Jamil Hussein at Yarmouk (supposedly a "Baathist remnant"), and could not find any Jamil Hussein at "Karrada" (al Khadra?) and that there is a Colonel Jamail Hussein at Abu Ghraib.  

January 2, 2007: IraqSlogger , Editor and Publisher , and CJR Daily all point out that these issues have not been resolved and that the AP has been very reluctant to address them head on. 

Bottom line: As far as I know, no one has been able to find a Captain Jamil Hussein.  If the AP's source really was this Sergeant Jamil Hussein at Yarmouk, no one has been able to explain why he would be a source on an attack that happened three miles away in the Hurriyah district, and why did the AP say he was based "more recently" in al-Khadra?  No one has been able to explain the discrepancy between the report that hospital workers had seen the bodies and a witness account that implies he buried the bodies after the attack.  Why has the NYT correspondent said he found no confirmation of this event, not even Sunni outrage?

January 4th: AP reports that the Iraq Interior Ministry has admitted Jamil Hussein does exist and was an officer at the Khadra police station. 

 January 5th: AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll spoke out against those who questioned the existence of Jamil Hussein in an interview with Editor & Publisher

January 9th: Curt at "Flopping Aces" quotes Bill Costlow, a supposed representative of the "Civilian Police Assistance Training Team" to allege that the Iraq Interior Ministry did not acknowledge the existence of Jamil Hussein, but rather the existence of a Captain Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim who was assigned to the Khada station.