Hussein Staged Photos with Posed Bodies?

Dan Riehl makes the stunning accusation that Associate Press photographer Bilal Hussein, a liberal and MSM cause de jour over the last week, staged photos of posed bodies with Iraqi children on January 25, 2005 in Ramadi, Iraq.

Dan is correct in charging that a body has been clearly moved in the photo about 3-4 feet, and in fact dragged over the top of another body between the first and third photos on his site.

I, however, have some problems with the photos used as examples.

(WARNING: graphic photos follow)

The AP caption for the first photo from Bilal Hussein states:

Iraqi youths stand next to five dead bodies in Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold 113 kilometers (70 miles) west of Baghdad, Saturday, Jan. 29, 2005. Insurgents claimed the men worked for the Americans. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

There is just one minor problem with the caption and photo. There are six bodies in the picture, not five.

I've lightly modified the photos for illustrative purposes. Every body is numbered in green, with a corresponding green line showing the general orientation of the body in question. As a reference point, I've indicated the edge of the concrete curb with a red line as well.

Bodies numbered 1-3 in this photo are clearly separated as distinct and individual bodies, with bodies 4-6 appearing more as an indistinct group because of the camera angle and distance.

We can however, make several observations about bodies 4-6 in this photo:

• body 4 lies on his back wearing blue pants, and lies parallel with and against the curb
• body 5 is wearing dark pants on the far side of body 4, and is laying perpendicular to the curb, with his head just touching it.
• Body 6 is all but completely obscured from this angle, but is betrayed by the blue inner lining of his jacket with obscures the base of the metal curb railing. He is also laying parallel to the curb.

It is critical to note the red line I've drawn to enhance the edge of the concrete curb in this photo. Note not a single body part from any of the six dead men extends above that marked curb edge in this photo.

Now let's look at what is the third photo on Dan's site, showing much the same scene from the opposite angle.

For this angle, body 6 is finally clearly visible. The blue jacket lining noted in the first photo is clearly pronounced, and his relative position the curb and the short metal curb railing conclusively proves that the Associated Press photo editors and caption writers were wrong about the number of bodes in the photo. The existence of a sixth body doesn't show them to be evil or dishonest, just sloppy.

The manipulation of body 5 to create another photo opportunity, however, is another matter entirely. There is no doubt that body 5 has been moved 3-4 feet up an over the curb edge and over the head of body 4 as compared to the body position in photo 1.

The Associate Press is guilty of sloppy photojournalistic fact checking by not even being able to get the number of victims correct, and it's credibility deserved to be called in question over the obvious manipulation of body 4.

It remains to be determined if they employed a terrorist as a photojournalist.

Update: Dan now states these photos were shot on successive days in the same location, with bodies 4-6 dumped January 28 and bodies 1-3 added on January 29. I'm not sure how much that matters to the points I made that:

• AP can't count the six bodies present in the first photo.
• the bodies, whenever they were deposited, had been obviously moved.