Bilal Hussein

There has been plenty of debate over whether military detainees should be put through civilan courts in the U.S. The ACLU think so and even want the detainees in Gitmo to be dragged through American courts. The AP throws all objectivity out the window and picks a side of the debate. Unsurprisingly, they choose the side of far left liberals.

The Associated Press, reporters groups and advocates for press freedoms urged the Supreme Court on Friday to reject Bush administration arguments that people held by the military in Iraq have no access to American courts.

Washington Post Ombudsman Deborah Howell served up a flimsy excuse to a concerned reader wondering why the Post doesn't have Post staffers reporting on the Bilal Hussein controversy, rather than just running AP wire stories. Hussein worked for AP as a photographer.

Blogger Scott Johnson shared the reader's e-mail and Howell's reply, then added that even if one accepts Howell's excuse, there's no reason Post media reporter Howard Kurtz couldn't track developments in the story.

From Powerline:

There is one current story in Iraq that has attracted the full attention of the Associated Press, and that is the case of Bilal Hussein, an AP photographer and terrorism suspect. The AP report on Hussein's hearing yesterday leaves out the fact that Hussein was arrested with a known al Qaeda terrorist... one of but many troubling aspects of the news organization's decision to forego objective news reporting in favor of self-serving advocacy in a clear and pervasive conflict of interest.

The Associated Press, as an involved party in this case, should recuse themselves from reporting on Hussein's trial.

According to The Associated Press Statement of News Values and Principles:

AP photographer Bilal Hussein made a reputation staging anti-war propaganda photos. In April of 2006 American forces detained him with a cache of weapons. The AP waged an all out campaign against our military’s actions. They demanded that we either charge or release this tool of theirs. Now the military has decided to charge him, and the AP are still whining.

The U.S. military plans to seek a criminal case in an Iraqi court against an award-winning Associated Press photographer but is refusing to disclose what evidence or accusations would be presented.

An AP attorney on Monday strongly protested the decision, calling the U.S. military plans a “sham of due process.” The journalist, Bilal Hussein, has already been imprisoned without charges for more than 19 months.

Jules Crittenden, writing in the Boston Herald, examines the Associated Press' actions in light of the detention of AP photographer Bilal Hussein, captured by Coalition forces with al Qaeda terrorists and a weapons cache earlier this year:

The Associated Press, the reliable just-the-facts news agency you and I once knew, no longer exists. Amoral propagandists have taken over. It is not only in the disturbing matter of Bilal Hussein, AP photograher and al-Qaeda associate, being held without charge in U.S. custody in Iraq that this is evident. But also in the departure from balanced, nonpartisan coverage that has always been the AP’s promise to us, its customers...

Blogger and columnist Michelle Malkin has been providing new information about Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi AP photographer who is being held by the U.S. government on charges of colluding with terrorists. The AP pretended the story didn't exist for five months, but when it finally admitted the truth, it also fired back a rebuttal to one of her recent columns. Said Malkin in her Sep. 20 column:

On April 12, I learned from military sources that an Associated Press photographer in Iraq, Fallujah native Bilal Hussein, had been captured in Ramadi in an apartment with insurgents and a cache of weapons. This was news. I asked the AP for confirmation. Corporate spokesman Jack Stokes informed me that company officials were "looking into reports that Mr. Hussein was detained by the U.S. military in Iraq but have no furthhttp://newsbusters.org/node/add/bloger details at this time." After reporting the alleged detention on my blog ( michellemalkin.com/archives/005941.htm), I followed up several more times with AP over the past five months for status updates on Hussein. No reply.

After trying to cover up the story for five months, the AP was finally forced to acknowledge that one of their own was being detained.

Let me repeat that: An Associated (with terrorists) Press journalist gets caught with an alleged al Qaeda leader and tests positive for bomb-making materials. That. Is. News. How does a news organization explain away its decision to sit on it for five months? Like this: "The AP has worked quietly until now, believing that would be the best approach."

The best approach to journalism? No. The best approach to suppressing a damning connection to terrorists.

Editor's note: Dan Riehl has uncovered some more apparent photo staging by AP photographer Bilal Hussein. Due to the graphic nature of the photos involved, we aren't posting the photos to the front page. Click the "read more" link to follow the story...

This story about a Vietnamese man who was a spy for the communists during the war as well as a reporter for Reuters and Time magazine is nothing short of an outrage. It also makes you wonder how many agents for totalitarianism are working in the press today. An's assertions of impartiality are all too familar as well. (An old MRC MediaWatch item on him is here.)

HANOI, Vietnam - Pham Xuan An, who led a remarkable and perilous double life as a communist spy and a respected reporter for Western news organizations during the Vietnam War, died Wednesday at age 79. [...]

In the history of wartime espionage, few were as successful as An. He straddled two worlds for most of the 15-year war in Indochina as an undercover communist agent while also working as a journalist, first for Reuters news service and later for 10 years as Time magazine's chief Vietnamese reporter — a role that gave him access to military bases and background briefings.

He was so well-known for his sources and insight that many Americans who knew him suspected he worked for the CIA.

Before Saigon fell to the communists, An worked to help friends escape, including South Vietnam's former security chief who feared death if he was found by northern forces. An later revealed his true identity as a Viet Cong commander, but said he never reported any false information or communist propaganda while in his role as a journalist.

I was thrilled to find this article featuring Bilal Hussein, the AP stringer who is currently under arrest by the U.S. military for colluding with terrorists.

AP Photographer Flees Fallujah
Witnesses US Helicopter Kill Fleeing Family of 5

by Katarina Kratovac

BAGHDAD, Iraq - In the weeks before the crushing military assault on his hometown, Bilal Hussein sent his parents and brother away from Fallujah to stay with relatives.

The 33-year-old Associated Press photographer stayed behind to capture insider images during the siege of the former insurgent stronghold.

Thrilled, because along with several mil blogs, I followed the Fallujah battle intensely, including with maps. See here and over a dozen links at bottom. But to the point. Here's Bilal's dramatic account of his escape from Fallujah. Jolan, his neighborhood was a hotbed of terrorists, they were being killed there in large groups the very day he fled.

If you've ever wondered how it is that some ostensibly "independent" photographers and cameramen just happen to be at the right place before terrorists strike in Iraq and elsewhere, head over to Michelle Malkin's blog where she has a lengthy, very well-researched post tracking the story of Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein.

Hussein was one of several photogs who have a peculiar habit of being in the vicinity before terrorists launched attacks, causing many bloggers to wonder whether he and others were, in fact, colluding with terrorists.

That allegation may be more than just that, however. According to a Malkin source, Hussein was arrested in Iraq with a cache of weapons in conjunction with the anti-American insurgency. In an email to Malkin, the AP confirmed that it had heard reports of the photographer's detention.

In August 2005, the Associated Press was put on notice by readers and editors that the stream of negative AP reports from Iraq needed to be balanced with positives from Iraq. The AP responded by posting FAQ’s (Frequently Asked Questions) on their website explaining how the war is covered. Based on a review of Associated Press articles in October 2005, the FAQ’s should be renamed the “falsely answered questions”.

The AP claimed their stories focused on “political developments in Iraq, writing daily about both political success and stalled efforts”. Based on Internet searches, the AP published approximately 207 articles about the war in Iraq during October 2005. Out of the 207 articles, 127 began with negative titles. In addition, titles of 65 articles referred to deaths in Iraq.