Not reported very much in the mainstream media is the story of Jamil Hussein. As I've written about previously, Jamil Hussein was/is supposedly a Baghdad police officer who Associated Press has quoted in approximately forty published dispatches. He has been protrayed as a "primary source" in all of these stories. The latest dispatch, which claimed that Sunni extremists firebombed a Shiite mosque, burning to death six Shia, has been called into question, as neither CENTCOM nor the Iraqi government has verified that this event happened. Actually, they've said it didn't happen. The writer of the blog Flopping Aces first got suspicious about this story and implored Associated Press to verify the existence of Jamil Hussein and his credibility as a witness. To date, Associated Press has yet to present Jamil Hussein to the skeptics in the blogosphere. Michelle Malkin has joined in with the search. Still no Jamil Hussein.
This story is an even bigger story than the Dan Rather faked memos ("Memogate") story because Associated Press is the biggest news agency in the world. Check any paper in America, and you're sure to find more than a few stories that say "From AP" or "AP Dispatch" at the end of them. This is true of even the biggest newspapers in America, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. If all newspapers in America get their news from AP, at least partially, what does that say about the quality and veracity of American journalism if the largest news agency in the world is perpetuating a fraud? Dan Rather took down CBS News with his vicious prevarication. This Associated Press story, if Jamil Hussein cannot be produced, can potentially take down the entire American journalism industry.
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