Despite Further Investigation, AP's 'Body Burning' Source Still a Mystery

December 22nd, 2006 1:13 PM
Michelle Malkin

has the latest on efforts to identify the mysterious "Captain Jamil Hussein," the "source" the AP claimed as an authority figure for a number of reports out of Iraq, including the apocryphal November story that claimed "Shiite militiamen grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive."

As Malkin reports, the AP itself isn't being very cooperative in trying to follow up on new leads.

Yesterday, I contacted the AP about the "Jamil Hussein"/Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim/Ghulaim findings and asked these simple questions:
Ref. http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006579.htm

1. Is Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim the real name of your oft-cited source, "Captain Jamil Hussein" aka " Jamil Gholaiem Hussein?"

2. If not, where is "Captain Jamil Hussein" currently working? If he is a Baghdad police officer, as AP asserts, why hasn't anyone -- not CPATT, not MOI, not Marc Danzinger's sources [nor Eason Jordan's] -- been able to locate him?

3. What is your response to the CPATT officers' report that Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim denies being AP's source?

Here is the response I received yesterday from AP media relations officer Linda Wagner:

Michelle-

I have no additional information for you at this time.

Linda

I also cc'ed my questions to AP exec editor Kathleen Carroll.

She did not respond.

Malkin says she has a source who "worked in the same police station where 'Jamil Hussein' allegedly worked." Says the source:

I have received back answers from both my RFI and from my IA S-2 [intelligence] and neither one has found a CPT Jamil Hussein working anywhere in Baghdad as an IP. My S-2 friend has talked with some of the officers in the Al-Yarmouk Police Station and they do not know him either.

WindsofChange.net says he did find a "Jamil Hussein" working at the police station in question, although...

there is no Capt. Jamil Hussein at Yarmouk, but there is a Sergeant by that name, with a somewhat dubious reputation (worked directly under Uday, Baathist remnant, etc.). So, we checked further, because, after all, I want to be certain before I start throwing too many things around, and it takes a different type and level of checking to have anything like confidence there than it does here to have something close to certainty - and be sure that we'll be talking about that a bit later.