12/19/2006

10 Responses to “Allah Asks: Is the AP Covering Its Tracks?”

1. The Jamil Hussein Saga Continues…

   In a far more serious update, it would appear AP is trying to cover up its tracks by rewriting its earlier articles to delete confirmation of burned bodies by morgue workers. Now, why would AP do this? The original version can still be found at the U…..

   A Blog For All (59ce3a) — 12/19/2006 @ 6:21 pm

   
   

2. Is there anyone who reads this blog but doesn’t read Hot Air?

   Err, yeah. but i’m probably it.

   SayUncle (79c3b1) — 12/19/2006 @ 6:31 pm

   
   

3. I read Hot Air but I’m not registered with Word Press (and don’t really want to be) so I can’t leave a comment there. However, I think there may be more differences with the articles than Allah has highlighted. There was also this 11/25/06 article that lists “AP correspondents Thomas Wagner, Bassem Mroue and Qais al-Bashir” as contributors and that contains describes other inflammatory events that seem to have disappeared in later articles.

   Below is the first 2/3 of the article, including portions I’ve bolded that vary from other AP reports:

   Revenge-seeking Shiite militiamen seized six Sunnis as they left Friday prayers, drenched them with kerosene and burned them alive, and Iraqi soldiers did nothing to stop the attack, police and witnesses said.

   The fiery slayings in the mainly Sunni neighborhood of Hurriyah were a dramatic escalation of the brutality coursing through the Iraqi capital, coming a day after suspected Sunni insurgents killed 215 people in Baghdad’s main Shiite district with a combination of bombs and mortars.

   The attacks culminated Baghdad’s deadliest week of sectarian fighting since the war began more than three years ago.

   Police Capt. Jamil Hussein said Iraqi soldiers at a nearby army post failed to intervene in the burnings of Sunnis carried out by suspected members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia, or in subsequent attacks that torched four Sunni mosques and killed at least 19 other Sunnis, including women and children, in the same northwest Baghdad area.

   Imad al-Hasimi, a Sunni elder in Hurriyah, confirmed Hussein’s account. He told Al-Arabiya television he saw people who were soaked in kerosene, then set afire, burning before his eyes.

   Two workers at Kazamiyah Hospital said the bodies from the clashes and immolations had been taken to the morgue at their facility. They refused to be identified by name, saying they feared retribution.

   In spite of the police and witness accounts, however, President Jamal Talabani appeared to discount the reports. He emerged from meetings with other Iraqi political leaders late Friday and said Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obaidi told him that the Hurriyah neighborhood had been quiet throughout the day.

   According to Hussein, the police official, militiamen rampaged through the district, setting fire to several homes in addition to the four mosques that were bombed and burned.

   Some residents claimed that the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, has begun kidnapping and holding Sunni hostages in order to slaughter them at funerals of Shiite victims of Baghdad’s sectarian violence.

   Such claims cannot be verified but speak to the deep fear that grips Baghdad, where retaliation has become a part of daily life.

   In the past year, thousands of bodies have been found dumped across Baghdad and other cities in central Iraq, victims who were tortured, then shot to death, according to police. The suspected militia killers often have used electric drills on their captives’ bodies before killing them. The bodies are frequently decapitated.

   Burning victims alive, however, introduced a new method of brutality that seemed likely to be reciprocated by the other sect as the Shiites and Sunnis continue killing one another in unprecedented numbers. The attack, which came despite a curfew in Baghdad, capped a day in which at least 87 people were killed or found dead in sectarian violence across Iraq.

   The Association of Muslim Scholars, the most influential Sunni organization in Iraq, said even more Sunni victims were killed. It claimed a total of 18 people had died in an inferno at the al-Muhaimin mosque.

   The extreme violence continued to tear at the Iraq’s social fabric even after the government had banned pedestrians and cars from the streets and closed the international airport until further notice in anticipation of a storm of retaliation for the five bombings and two mortar rounds that killed 215 in Sadr City on Thursday.

   The airport closure forced Talabani to delay his planned Saturday departure for Tehran for meetings with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Iranian leader also invited Syrian President Bashar Assad, but it now appeared he would not attend.

   The chaos also cast a shadow over the Amman, Jordan, summit next week between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Bush.”

   It’s interesting that this article included a statement by President Talabani that the there were no reports of violence in the Hurriyah neighborhood. I haven’t seen that repeated in other AP stories.

   DRJ (a5fa81) — 12/19/2006 @ 7:49 pm

   
   

4. I’m one of the ones that reads this site but not Hot Air.

   Anyone who would state the AP is “anti-American” just because it doesn’t parrot fringe right paranoia has no interest in anything but making a buck off rubes…

   Patterico, your site is a model of rational discourse by comparison.

   Neville Chamberlain (80a4fa) — 12/19/2006 @ 8:06 pm

   
   

5. I don’t know what to believe anymore but:

   1. If it’s true that 215 Sadr City residents were killed earlier that day and in prior days by Sunnis, and

   2. If there is no or little evidence to support the report that the Sunni mosque immolations actually occurred …

   Then it strikes me that this may have been a Sunni propaganda effort aimed at portraying Sunnis as victims rather than attackers. In other words, could Capt. Hussein’s report have been a Sunni diversionary tactic designed to distract reporters from stories of extensive Sunni violence in Sadr City by escalating with claims that Sunnis were being burned alive?

   DRJ (a5fa81) — 12/19/2006 @ 8:07 pm

   
   

6. i don’t read hot air. i don’t have time to read every damn politics/journalism blog on the web and i like this one, so this will have to be it. i read several other blogs, but they don’t cover the same subjects.

   assistant devil's advocate (a29af7) — 12/19/2006 @ 8:38 pm

   
   

7. Given how critical you are of me and my positions, I’m curious why you like this one.

   Patterico (de0616) — 12/19/2006 @ 8:39 pm

   
   

8. Where’s the profit in reading the opinions of people who agree with you?

   It’s the intellectual equivalent of suckling at your mommy’s teat…

   Neville Chamberlain (80a4fa) — 12/20/2006 @ 12:02 am

   
   

9. I read Hot Air but I’m not registered with Word Press (and don’t really want to be) so I can’t leave a comment there.

   FYI, when you register with a WordPress-powered site, you’re not registering “with WordPress.” It isn’t like TypeKey. You can register on Hot Air and not be known to any other WordPress site, just as you could register on my ExpressionEngine-powered site and be utterly unknown to any other EE-powered site.

   McGehee (5664e1) — 12/20/2006 @ 1:03 pm

   
   

10. patterico, i’m critical of your positions some of the time, other times i agree with you.
    i’ve never been critical of you personally. i have made digs at your apparent oversubscription of your time (prosecutor, blogger, music critic, devoted father…cook!). this should not be interpreted as a personal attack. if you like, you’re welcome to chalk it up to envy of your extraordinary dynamism.
    i think you should hire a media agent, because you’re a major media property waiting to happen. i’m sure you think the blogosphere is already major media, but it still isn’t as big as tv.
    anticipating your first objection to this “i’m not goodlooking enough” sure you are. just look at all the other talking heads. you can do this, it will enable you to retire from prosecution, make more money and spend more time with your kids.

    assistant devil's advocate (d3742b) — 12/20/2006 @ 8:15 pm