Back From Iraq

The Hot Air crew of Bryan Preston and Michelle Malkin are safely back from Iraq and their embed at Forward Operating Base Justice, and are rolling out reports pretty fast and furious.

Michelle previews their reporting with video from Baghdad in her latest Vent, and also provides commentary on MichelleMalkin.com, in a post titled, Back From Baghdad.

Bryan Preston begins an analysis of his view of what they learned in Assessing Iraq on Hot Air.

Michelle notes that the soldiers at FOB Justice would welcome MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as embeds, and I'm fairly certain that MSNBC could probably pick up the tab of such a trip.

Do you think they'll take up our troops on the offer?

Me neither.

Michelle and Brian also note in their reports that they did make it into Hurriyah, where the Associated Press still apparently maintains that 24 Sunnis were killed and four mosques were "burned and blew up" by Shia militiamen. Do you think they Associated Press is worried? I do.

After last week's bombshell that AP's source is not named Jamil Gholaiem Hussein as AP insists, but instead Jamil Gulaim "XX" (his second middle name and last name redacted) according to his personnel records, Linda M. Wagner, Director of Media Relations and Public Affairs for the Associated Press, contacted me within 1.5 when I pressed AP reporter Steven R. Hurst for confirmation.

She stated in part:

Steve Hurst passed your e-mail inquiry along to me. AP stands by the story below, which provides the full name of the source whose existence was acknowledged to AP by Iraq's Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf in an interview on Thursday, January 4. I have bolded the relevant passages for ease of finding them in the text.

In short, they were standing behind the name Jamil Gholaiem Hussein. But did AP intend to stand behind all their claims made during their reporting of the Hurriyah incident, where AP reported a total of 24 people killed, and four mosques attacked, "burned and blew up?"

And so I sent the following questions to Linda Wagner yesterday afternoon:

I have some questions for you regarding the Associated Press' reporting of the Hurriyah reporting.

On November 24 and 25, 2006, AP reported four mosques--al-Mustafa, Nidaa Allah, al-Muhaimin and al-Qaqaqa mosques--were attacked "with rocket-propelled grenades, heavy machine guns and automatic rifles," before being "burned and blew up." These allegations were directly attributed to Iraqi Police Captain Jamil Hussein. Successive AP coverage has dropped all mention of three of the mosques. Does the Associated Press still maintain that four mosques were attacked in Hurriyah on November 24, 2006 with RPGs, heavy machine guns and assault rifles, and that these four mosques were burned and blown up?

The AP also cited the Association of Muslim Scholars as a source for a claim that at one of these mosques (al-Muhaimin) "18 people had died in an inferno" as a result of these attacks. Do you think it was responsible of the Associated Press to run these allegations considering that the Association of Muslim Scholars is alleged to have strong ties with both the Sunni insurgency and al Qaeda? Should AP have mentioned these ties to terrorist groups when it cited the AMS as a source? These 18 claimed dead have also disappeared for subsequent AP reports. Does the Associated Press still stand behind this claim they reported?

In both instances, if the Associated Press no longer feels these accounts are credible, don't you have a responsibility as an ethical news organization to print a correction or a retraction of these charges?

Further, I have seen written claims shortly after the first AP claims of an attack that AP Television has video footage of damage to the Ahbab al-Mustafa mosque, where AP source Jamil Hussein claims six men were pulled from the mosque and immolated. Does the Associated Press indeed have such footage? If so, why has it not been mentioned since November 30, and can I obtain a copy of that footage?

If the Associated Press does not have the video footage of damage to the Ahbab al-Mustafa mosque from the attack that left six men immolated, the why has the Associated Press not acknowledged this, and printed a retraction or a correction for this claim?

As you can see, my primary line of questioning is wondering why the AP has back of claims made in the first several days of reporting, without printing a correction or a retraction of these claims.

I'd also like to know if the Associated Press still stands behind the accounts sourced to Jamil Hussein by the Associated Press between April and November of 2006.

Thank you very much for your time.

So far, the AP's Director of Media Relations and Public Affairs that contacted me within 1.5 hours of my contacting another AP employee last week has been silent on this longer list of questions.

Perhaps teh Assocaited Press hasan inkling of what Michelle and Bryan's Excellent Adventure may mean to their Hurriyah reporting. I have a feeling we will all know very soon.

Update: Audio of Michelle's interview on The Laura Ingraham Show.