Yes, the Iraqi Police have confirmed that there is a “Capt. Jamil Hussein.” That’s also the name of the source of AP’s controversial story about six Iraqi Sunni civilians being burned alive outside their mosque by Shia militiamen. You can read the AP story here. But the full truth about this guy may still not be known. For one thing, AP has yet to produce his photo, a copy of his credentials or a live interview with him. It is also true that Iraqi Policemen are constant targets for lethal retaliation by the insurgency and thus Hussein may fear being publicly identified if he is legitimate. But even if it is stipulated that AP has been right all along, it has been using a source who is an Iraqi Police Captain by name of Jamil Hussein, that isn’t proof that he is a credible source. Don’t forget that al Qaeda and the insurgents have made clear that they consider learning to manipulate the western press is a major front in their war of Jihad. And there is abundant evidence that there are significant numbers of insurgent sympathizers among the Iraqi Police forces. Neither is it beyond the realm of possibility that Hussein is in fact a double agent. I talked earlier today with an old journalism friend who has covered just about every significant foreign military action involving U.S. troops in the past 15 years, including both the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and Iraq War of 2003. My friend explained the difficulties faced by AP and other Western journalists in the theater. Because it is so dangerous outside the Green Zone in Bagdhad, few Western journalists venture out beyond its confines. So they have to rely upon local stringers drawn from among the Iraqi population. Because being a news stringer can put dollars in the pocket, there is a tremendous competition among these folks to bring the Western journalists the best stories. That competition is, of course, an open invitation to exaggeration, rumor and outright lies being peddled as legitimate news. It is also an opening for a resourceful insurgent or al Qaeda operative to become a source for Western journalists. Because of AP’s ill-advised “trust me” attitude when bloggers first began questioning the credibility of Hussein as a source, the emphasis was on proving his existence. Proving that he exists is not the same thing as establishing his credibility as a source, especially since there is so much contrary evidence regarding the six Sunnis being burned alive. Let’s also not forget that Hussein is just one of more than a dozen sources with Iraqi names used by Western journalists in stories that appear to have serious flaws. In other words, the book is far from closed on this controversy.
