Bill Costlow, the CPATT (Civilian Police Assistance Training Team) representative, has some more information regarding the discovery of Jamil Hussein:
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").
2. The real issue is this: Jamil works in Al Khadra (think of Staten Island) — he’s telling the media about Al Hurriah murders (Think of Queens — it’s a different area of the city):
- Why would any reporter consider this guy a reliable source under these circumstances?
- When you consider that he’s been quoted in more than 60 AP stories, you have to ask how much of that information was secondhand or rumor, considering there is no evidence this last report of his ever happened.
- There’s been a series of murders reported by the AP
- There are no bodies.
- The source is a police officer from a different area of the city
- There’s no official police report to refer to — so where did the information come from?
- The bodies were reportedly taken to a hospital morgue that doesn’t have a morgue
- There are no family member reports, complaints or interviews
- There are no pictures or video of the event.
- None of the other media in Baghdad are covering this
3. The MOI doesn’t follow AP or any other western media source closely: they are very busy trying to impact the security situation — what raised the issue for them was a request from MNFI Public Affairs to confirm the event actually happened.
Hope this helps,
Bill
Which throws a monkey wrench into the AP assertion that the MoI was inept in not searching for Jamil Hussein via his middle name.
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.
In reality this guy apparently didn’t use his last name much but instead went by Jamil Gulaim.
Additionally, this may very well be the same guy that the MoI had believed was the Jamil Hussein we were looking for last week but he denied on December 21st that he was ever a source for the AP:
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.
Not only did he deny being the source, he challanged anyone to prove he was a source:
"I am challenging any one can prove by recording or film that I did that"
So hold your horses everyone.
Bill is in Kuwait at the moment heading to Baghdad and will have more infomation later.
See author page
This just keeps getting interestinger and interestinger. At least now we have it from someone besides AP that Khalaf did say Jamil has been found; that’s something. The guy still has a lot of explaining to do.
I added an excerpt and link to CENTCOM says AP’s "Iraqi police source" isn’t Iraqi police — Part 31
Aw, c’mon, don’t you believe Steven Hurst when Steven Hurst tells you that Steven Hurst didn’t tell any porkies while using a source that denies he ever talked to Steven Hurst or any of his underlings?
How could you ever doubt, Curt? 🙂
Thanks for the updates.
You may have missed part of the story.
Hat tip to The Jawa Report and detail from Confederate Yankee:
http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/210518.php
By my count the following are the number of bylines by name for the AP stories (subject to errors and omissions):
Thomas Wagner 11;
No Byline 8;
Sinan Salaheddin 5;
Kim Gamel 4;
Qassim Abdul-Zahra 2;
Qais Al-Bashir 2;
Sameer N. Yacoub 2;
Lee Keath 1;
Robert H. Reid 1;
Tarek El-Tablawy 1;
Patrick Quinn 1;
Ryan Lenz 1;
Bassem Mroue 1;
How many stringers vs, regular AP reporters?
Will any of them admit to actually speaking with Capt. Jamil Hussein?
How come so many AP reporters can find this guy but no one else?
Where are they based? U.S.? Green Zone? Imbedded?
How many other Iraq war reporting bylines do they have?
What is their individual credibility and/or integrity?
Who has interviewed the above?
Any willing to go on the record?
If they are shown to misrepresent their source will it hurt their careers?
This post looks better if original formating used.
New Twists In The Jamil Hussein Saga
Courtesy of Flopping Aces:
Bill Costlow, the CPATT (Civilian Police Assistance Training Team) representative, has some more information regarding the discovery of Jamil Hussein:
Curt,
Here’s what I can tell you:
1. Media reports abou…
Curiouser and curiouser
Save your apologies. It ain’t over yet. The Associated Press, indignant as usual on the subject, now claims to have found its Jamil Hussein, their stringer’s named source for sixty plus dispatches from Iraq. Not surprisingly, the industry’s mouthpiece …
New Twists In The Jamil Hussein Saga
Not only did he deny being the source, he challanged anyone to prove he was a source:
“I am challenging any one can prove by recording or film that I did that”