AP source not who he claimed to be

[Nova Land]

Once again I've been absent longer than intended. I've been very short on sleep this past week, and dislike posting when my mind is fuzzy that way. (One reason I enjoy hanging out in the Puzzles area of the forum is that it allows one to see whether one is reading clearly enough, and thinking things through clearly enough, to be contributing to serious threads.)

I'm moderately caught up on sleep now, and don't expect any more long absences for the next couple of months. So here is my next batch of posts. I have a goodly number of replies I intend to make to various Mycroft posts from past pages, so I'll be posting those in batches for the next few days. I'm trying not to post too much at one time, but this first batch is going to be rather large.

I'm still a few pages behind the rest of you, but hope to catch up with the rest of you soon. Merry Christmas -- and happy new year next week!

 

[Nova Land]

Before I pick up where I left off, I'd like to return to something from page 2. Back in post # 49 Mycroft stated:

The claims being made are:

1) The Baghdad police failed to verify this event took place...

2) The Iraqi Ministry of the Interior (MOI) says they don't know anyone named Capt. Jamil Hussein....

3) Another source oft quoted by AP, Police Lt. Maithem Abdul Razzaq is also unknown to the Iraqi MOI...

Mycroft's basic idea -- listing the various claims that AP and others are making -- was good. Such a list could be a helpful tool for our discussion in this thread. Mycroft didn't do a very good job at compiling the list, but it's still something worth doing.

Here's my first attempt at an improved list. What I have attempted to do is go through both the key AP statements and the key Dean/MOI statements and extract the assertions they have made on matters of fact. I welcome serious additions or corrections.

I. The central issue is a report that 6 Sunnis were burned alive by Shiite militia in Hurriyah on November 24.

II. AP's public statements relating to this matter contain a number of assertions which should be examined. These include:

1: that Jamil Hussein is one source for this story.
2: that Jamil Hussein has been an AP source for 2 years;
3: that an AP reporter has met Jamil Hussein several times at his office in the al-Yarmouk police station and also spoken with him by telephone;
4: that AP reporters have talked to residents of the neighborhood where the burnings occurred;
5: that several residents said they had witnessed the burnings and gave detailed accounts;
6: that AP reporters examined the mosque and found signs of fire damage consistent with the report.
7: that AP reporters talked to hospital workers who coroborated the story that people had been burned to death.
8: that AP reporters talked to morgue workers who coroborated the story that people had been burned to death.​

III. Michael Dean and MOI have also made public statements relating to this matter. Assertions in their statements which should be examined include:

1: that MOI conducted an investigation and found no evidence that people were burned alive in Hurriyah on that day;
2: that MOI did a record check on Jamil Hussein and did not find a listing for him.
3. that Jamil Hussein is not an Iraqi police officer.
4. that Jamil Hussein is not authorized by MOI to speak to the media.
5. that various other people whom AP has been using as sources are also not authorized to be speaking to the media.​

IV: In addition, there are assertions which appear both in AP statements and Dean/MOI statements. While these assertions do not appear to be in dispute, they still need to be examined. These include:

1: that MOI spoke to one person who initially said he was an eyewitness to the burnings, and that this person retracted his story after MOI talked to him;
2: that MOI has rules which prohibit poice officers from speaking to the press unless they are on MOI's list of approved sources;
3: that MOI will punish police officers who speak to the media without permission;
4: that MOI will punish media outlets which print stories MOI does not approve of.​

 

[Nova Land]

a couple of notes about the list:

.
NOTE 1: Some may find my inclusion of points IV-2, IV-3 and IV-4, concerning MOI's new media policy, odd. I find it odd as well, since at first blush the new MOI media policy might seem of little relevance to the central issue of whether six Sunnis were burned alive. And yet references to this new policy keep cropping up in every statement issued by Dean/MOI, and have also featured prominently in the AP statements.

I see this list as an aid in identifying areas which should be looked into and clarified. If the new MOI media policy is important enough to both AP and Dean/MOI that they keep on bringing it up, then it merits inclusion. In the end it may indeed turn out to be an irrelevant tangent -- but it should be looked at and looked into before being set aside.

NOTE 2: A list could also be compiled of the claims about this matter being made by various bloggers, but I'll leave that for someone else. I think that is a separate project.

I have not spent much time reading the blogs, and my impression from the items I did read was that their contribution to this is largely rhetorical. AP, Dean, and MOI are directly involved; their statements refer to things they claim to have seen, heard, or done. The bloggers are armchair observers; their statements consist mainly of interpretations what has been reported by others, and speculations about what those reports mean. When it comes to questions of determining the truth of a factual matter, I am more interested in examining the statements made by people directly involved in the matter than in analyzying the opinions of people sitting on the sidelines.

But a list of the assertions made by various bloggers would be a very useful thing to have at some point, so that when this matter is settled we can look back and see how accurate -- or inaccurate -- their analyses and speculations were.

 

[Nova Land]

a general comment on the list:

.
In looking at the list, one key difference between the AP list and the Dean/MOI list is apparent to me. AP made a number of specific assertions as to matters of fact; Dean/MOI were much less specific, preferring to tell us what they concluded from their 'investigation' rather than to give us the details of that 'investigation'. That lends a small amount of extra weight to AP's side of the scales, and takes a small amount of weight away from Dean/MOI's side, by my standards of weighing.

Providing details in the way AP has makes it more possible for others to attempt to verify if what they say is true. As such, it is in the interests of those who believe they are telling the truth to provide as many substantiating details as they are able; it is in the interests of those who are not telling the truth to provide fewer substantiating details, and to rely more on rhetoric to make the few facts they provide sound more impressive. The fewer details provided, the harder it is for those attempting to verify the story to find flaws or contradictions -- and the less a liar needs to remember to keep straight.

There often are genuine reasons for keeping details secret. In this case, both sides can claim a need for confidentiality. Even so, I find the difference between the AP statements and the MOI ones to be striking.

This is not a major determining factor in deciding who is telling the truth and who isn't. It is simply a small contributing factor to the overall picture. But these kinds of things are useful in helping us spot the areas where deceptions are likely and to give those areas a closer look.

 

[Nova Land]

One reason for compiling the above list is to identify areas where questions should be asked. Here are examples of some questions I would like to see asked and answered, to clear up some of the vagueness and ambiguities in the above-listed assertions:

I. Some questions for AP:

In regards to Jamil Hussein, your statements have used the word we (as in "we have talked with him"), implying more than one reporter has done so, but this has not been clearly stated. How many of your reporters have talked to Jamil Hussein? How many of your reporters have met with Jamil Hussein at the al-Yarmouk police station? If it is only one, by what method did you confirm that the reporter had actually met with Hussein?​

Clearing up this point would make it clearer whether to give much weight to AP's statement of support for their reporter. If, despite their previous assurances, it turns out that only one reporter has actually met with and talked with Jamil Hussein, that would reduce the weight AP's statement should receive to nil.

You say your reporter also spoke with Jamil Hussein by telephone. It is implied (but not specifically stated) that the reporter had a number at which he could reach Jamil Hussein. Is this so? And, if it is so, was this an office phone at the police station, or was it located elsewhere? (If it was a phone in the police station, did calls go through the station switchboard, or did the line connect directly?)​

If the AP reporter did have an office phone number which connected to the police station, that would lend a good deal of weight to the claim that Jamil Hussein is a genuine police officer. If the phone rang through a switchboard and the reporter had to ask for Jamil Hussein by name in order to be connected, that would lend a good deal of weight to the claim that Jamil Hussein is the real name of this police officer.

Did the reporter talk with any police officers other than Jamil Hussein while at the al-Yarmouk police station? Were other police officers nearby or present while the reporter talked with Jamil Hussein?​

If the reporter was able to talk with other officers while at the station, that supports the idea that Jamil Hussein is an actual police captain. If the reporter was restricted to talking only to the person claiming to be Jamil Hussein, that lends weight to the possibility the reporter was being conned. I am assuming the AP reporter had to check in with a desk sergeant on arrival at the station, and give the name of the person he was there to see, but this has not been clearly stated.

AP said hospital and morgue workers corroborated the story. How did they do this?​

I assume these workers confirmed that burnt dead bodies had been brought in that day, but this is not explicity stated in AP statements and it would be good to nail this point down.

II. Some questions for Michael Dean and Abdul-Karim Khalaf:

Describe the investigations you conducted to determine if people had been burned alive in Hurriyah. Please name the investigating officers. Could these officers be made available to to the media to answer questions about who they talked to and what they were told?
​

The answers (or non-answers) to these questions will will help us decide how much weight should be given to the fact the MOI investigation turned up no evidence of 6 Sunnis being burned to death at the mosque. If the officers went to the neighborhood and talked with residents, that would add weight; if they conducted the investigation by phone, that would drastically reduce the weight.

Equally important: the (alleged) victims and witnesses were Sunni, and the (alleged) attackers were Shiite. Therefore people in the neighborhood would probably be considerably more likely to talk to Sunni officers and considerably less likely to talk with Shiite officers. If MOI sent Sunni officers to do the investigation, then the failure to find any evidence of the burnings would carry more weight; if the MOI sent Shiite officers, the failure to turn up evidence would carry little to no weight.

Describe the records check you did on Jamil Hussein. Specifically, explain what records were consulted. Did the search include a check of pay records for the al-Yarmouk station? A check of all people who have worked at the al-Yarmouk police station over the past two years? A check of all people who have worked as police captains at the al-Yarmouk police station over the past two years?​

Dean has said MOI did a records check, but he and Khalaf both conspicuously failed to mention what records were checked. Until someone is willing to specify clearly which records were searched, little to no weight should be given to Dean's statement.

Some of you are assuming that the MOI checked pay records, or that they checked employment records, or that they checked the al-Yarmouk duty roster. It's possible that MOI checked one or more of these things -- but that has not been established yet. The only list they have specifically referred to in the statements I've read is the recently created list of people authorized to speak to the media.

Did you talk with police officers at al-Yarmouk police station to see whether they were familiar with Jamil Hussein and knew who he was? If so, whom did you speak with and what did they say?
​

This is a logical and obvious thing for Dean and MOI to have done if they were genuinely trying to ascertain if Jamil Hussein exists. If they did carry out such a check, that would lend support to their claim that they tried to find out if Jamil Hussein really was an Iraqi police captain and were not able to find any evidence of his existence.

When and how did you first learn that Jamil Hussein was being quoted in AP news stories as a police captain in al-Yarmouk? If you were aware of this prior to the November, why was no mention made before then? If you were not aware of it until November, why were you not aware until then?​

This is the part of the Dean/MOI story which makes the least sense. Jamil Hussein was a quoted source on dozens of important stories -- stories which bloggers are now saying were clearly enemy propaganda -- and no one noticed this until the Sunni burning story? Does no one in the al-Yarmouk police station read the paper or follow the news? Does no one at MOI read the paper or follow the news?

The idea that Jamil Hussein was not authorized to speak to the media, and so was flagged for having previously spoken to them when MOI began enforcing its new policy, makes sense. The idea that Jamil Hussein was non-existent does not.

III. Some matters I would like to see investigated, but realize it would probably be rather pointless to ask questions about:

Is MOI threatening to take action against AP and other media outlets if they pursue this story?
Is MOI threatening to take action against Jamil Hussein if he speaks to the media again?​

We know this happened under Saddam Hussein. Is it happening again? That would account for AP's silence on a number of questions.

The problem with simply asking the question directly is that if MOI is not making such threats, the answer would be no; and if MOI is making such threats, the answer would also be no.

What is the deal with the person who originally claimed to be an eyewitness to the burnings, but retracted his story after a visit from MOI people? ​

Neither AP nor MOI is talking about this. Why not?

The obvious assumption is that MOI threatened him with jail or other sanctions if he stuck to his story. That raises the obvious question: did he recant because he was lying and they could prove it, or did he recant even though he was telling the truth because they intimidated him? I think both are plausible explanations.

The lack of follow-up on this man's recantation stands out as something which should be probed. What did he say to the MOI? Oops, you're right, now that I think about it I guess that isn't what I saw after all. I really need to get a new pair of glasses. This is not a matter one accidentally gets wrong. And yet there is no news about MOI pressing charges against him, nor is MOI having him repeat his recantation to the media even though his admission of lying would be strong support for their claim no burning of Sunnis occurred.

The recantation is interesting enough just by itself; but the silence by both MOI and AP is fascinating -- in a frightening and disturbing way.

 

[Nova Land]

Steps I would take if I were an AP editor to clear this up:

1) Contact Captain Hussein. Ask him if he’s aware of any issues that might create difficulty in verifying his employment. Also get further information including the name of his immediate supervisor, his subordinates, any employee identification numbers that might apply, and a brief account of his history with the police force.

Telephone conversation between hypothetical AP reporter Mycroft and police captain Jamil Hussein:

Mycroft: Hello, Captain Hussein. Thank you for taking my call. We'd like to verify your existence and employment, since the MOI has questioned it. Can you provide the names of some of your colleagues so that we can talk to them and confirm for our readers that you exist?

Jamil Hussein: Well, there's a problem. Previously it was permitted for police captains to talk to the media, so I've been able to provide you guys with information in the past. But now MOI wants to drastically restrict media contacts. MOI is quite serious about this, and some of the penalties are pretty severe. If I talk to you on the record again, at a minimum I'll be fired with no pay, no pension, and no protection if a Shiite militia decides to look up me and my family. If my colleagues talk to you, same thing for them.

If you can get the MOI to give me or my colleagues permission to talk with you, and a guarantee there'll be no reprisals, we'll be happy to do so. But unless you do, we can't afford to. Sorry. <Click>

3) Find out more about Captain Hussein. Find out if he’s willing to be interviewed in his home with his wife and kids. Find out where he went to school, how he spent the Saddam years, what his hopes for Iraq are and how best he thinks they may be achieved.

Follow-up telephone conversation between hypothetical AP reporter Mycroft and police captain Jamil Hussein:

Mycroft: Hello, we seem to have been cut off.

Jamil Hussein: No, I hung up. I can't afford to be seen or overheard talking with you guys anymore. I thought I'd made that clear.

Mycroft: Oh. Well, then how about our visiting you at home, talking with your wife and kids, and featuring them prominently in some stories about you, so that everyone will know you're real? And just in case suspicious bloggers think that maybe you brought in people to play the roles of your family members, we can print your address and print pictures of your house to prove your identity. And to really tie things up neatly, maybe we can get details from you about where you went to school, and who your friends and neighbors have been over the years, so that we can plaster the names and faces of people who've known you on the front page of newspapers everywhere. Hey, everyone loves to get their names in the papers, right?

Jamil Hussein: <Swears loudly. Hangs up>

Mycroft: I guess that's a "No". Guess we'll have to go with Plan B...

2) Contact the Ministry of the Interior myself and verify if Captain Hussein works there or not. If not, check for alternative spellings and provide any employee identification provided by Capt Hussein previously. If still can’t verify, check for the people Hussein provided as superiors and subordinates, also ask for organizational command chart, if one exists.

Telephone conversation between hypothetical AP reporter Mycroft and Abdul-Karim Khalaf of the MOI:

Mycroft: Hello, I'm calling for the AP. We'd like to confirm that Jamil Hussein, whom we've been talking to for the past 2 years, is not a police captain in al-Yarmouk. Could we come over to check your files and your employee organization chart?

Abdul-Karim Khalaf: No, that's confidential information.

Mycroft: I see. Well then, in that case could you give us permission to talk with some of the officers at al-Yarmouk police station to see if any of them were familiar with Jamil Hussein?

Abdul-Karim Khalaf: No, we can't do that. You can come down to our office, though, and talk with some of our authorized press relations people.

Mycroft: That's very generous of you, but we'd really rather talk with the people who worked with captain Hussein rather than people at your office. And since you've said you'll fire them if they talk to us, and press for penalties against us if we print anything they say, we were hoping you'd be willing to give us permission to do that. That way we can get this whole misunderstanding cleared up.

Abdul-Karim Khalaf: No, I'm sorry, we can't do that. But I'll tell you what we can do. We can bring Jamil Hussein and his family in for questioning so that we can find out why he would tell such outrageous stories. Stories that put our government in a bad light. Stories we really did not want to see in the papers. I bet we have methods that can extract the truth from them. We'll be glad to that for anyone who talks to you and tells you these things. And if you keep pursuing this story, we'll do exactly that.

We at MOI really think this whole story, which never happened, told to you by someone who never existed, has gone on long enough. We'd like it if you stopped writing about it and started writing about some of the real, true news which is happening in Iraq. Maybe you should drop this whole thing and concentrate on that.

Mycroft: Sounds extremely reasonable to me! Thank you for taking the time to talk with me, and for your detailed helpful answers.

NOTE: This was an attempt at showing in a humorous way why Mycroft's suggested methods for verifying Hussein's identity is not a good one. But since humor is often misunderstood around here, I'll respond seriously as well.

There are a number of problems with Mycroft's proposal. Please see the next post for a serious look at these problems.

 

[Nova Land]

When Randi is testing someone who claims to have paranormal abilities, he tries to come up with a test which a person who genuinely had the claimed abilities would be able to pass but which a person who did not have the claimed abilities would fail. That's an admirable way of doing things, and one I wish more people tried to do.

The method you have designed for verifying Jamil Hussein's reality is not such a test. It is a test which, whether Jamil Hussein is genuine or a fake, he and AP are unlikely to be able to go along with. As such it would be useful only to show he is a fake -- not to show that he is genuine.

(1) One obvious reason why AP and Jamil Hussein are unlikely to agree to what you propose is that putting Jamil Hussein and his family in a spotlight is something which they very likely do not want and cannot afford. Even in the US (which is not a war zone) many people involved in controversial matters prefer not to have their addresses and personal details splashed across the pages of the daily paper. Here is a person who has made powerful enemies by speaking on the record to the AP. In the 1990s Operation Rescue and related groups wanted to put up flyers with the names and addresses of abortion providers and their families -- where they lived, what they looked like, where their children went to school, etc. What you're proposing to do to Jamil Hussein is similar.

(2) Even if Jamil Hussein did not object to having himself and his family put in the crosshairs the way you suggest, it would still be a bad idea -- because it would send a message to other AP sources that they, too, could suddenly find themselves pressured to step into the spotlight. Many people -- in the US as well as Iraq -- are willing to talk to the media only if they know they can do so privately. It is essential to the media to be able to talk with such people. That's how a large number of important stories have been uncovered. Sending a message that anyone who talks to the media may find themselves the center of hostile attention is a good way to make sure that people who might have talked privately will think twice about it and keep their mouths shut instead. That's something AP can't afford.

(3) Since MOI has just lectured the media on not printing stories they obtain from unauthorized sources, and since MOI has just laid down the law to all their own employees not to talk to the media, then it seems odd that your immediate proposal for resolving the matter is for AP and MOI employees to violate the MOI policy. Do you feel the media should defy this policy in general? If not, what are the guidelines you suggest for when they honor the MOI policy and when they defy it?

I believe MOI (and MNC-I) attempt to control whom the media is allowed to talk to and what the media is allowed to print is a bad one -- one which should be challenged and overturned. I wish the media would publicly denounce it and publicly resist it. If that's your sentiment too, then I am pleased to be in agreement with you.

But you and I are not the ones with our necks on the line; it is the people who work for AP, and the people who are willing to talk to AP, who would suffer the consequences. Given the record of abuses in Iraq, I'm not going to condemn people who choose not to openly defy the MOI's Soviet-style press policy.

Those are a few of the reasons why your suggestion is unrealistic and not likely to be followed by AP.

But there's an even bigger flaw with your suggestion, which should have spotted for yourself if you'd actually thought it through. It's such a major flaw that I'm going to put it in a post of its own ...

 

[Nova Land]

Steps I would take if I were an AP editor to clear this up...

Here's the biggest problem with the actions you say AP should take: the actions you listed would do little to nothing to actually clear the matter up.

Let's suppose Jamil Hussein did agree to let his family be interviewed in their home by AP. The AP reporters go there. A woman identifies herself as his wife, and a picture is taken of them (and their kids -- assuming he has any).

And the bloggers respond: Big effin' deal! How do we know these are actually his wife and kids, and not just phonies that AP brought in to play the part?

So AP asks what the wife's maiden name was, where did she grow up, when were they married, etc., and she provides these details, which AP duly writes up in a story.

And the bloggers writes entries saying, Well, sure, if Jamil Hussein is a fake then it would be easy for them to look up the records of a real person named Jamil Hussein, find out when he got married and to whom, and provide this actress with the details of that Jamil Hussein's wife so she could recite them for this staged interview. What does this actually prove? AP must think we're a bunch of dummies to try to palm this off as proof of that fake's existence.

So AP goes to the neighbor's homes, and asks them, Is that woman actually Jamil Hussein's wife? Are those actually his kids? And the neighbors say yes, they've lived here for years, we know them, nice folks.

To which the bloggers respond, How do we know these are his real neighbors, and not just phonies that AP has brought in to pretend they know this guy?

So AP goes door to door, asking each neighbor in turn to verify that the previous neighbor was a genuine resident.

And the bloggers say, Even if these are the guy's real neighbors, what does that prove? He's obviously a Sunni insurgent, so it stands to reason his neighbors are going to be insurgents or sympathizers, too. Of course they're going to lie and support his phony story about being a police captain. The very fact that AP would use something this weak as a way to prove the guy is genuine is proof that he's a fake...

No. What you have suggested is not a good way to verify that Jamil Hussein exists and was a police captain. All it accomplishes is making AP jump through a series of hoops. I am amazed that you didn't realize that yourself.

There is a better way to resolve the matter -- one which I have suggested at least 4 times previously in this thread. Since you may not have read all the posts in this thread, I'll be glad to state it again. (See next post)

 

[Nova Land]

The question we are trying to answer is whether Jamil Hussein worked at al-Yarmouk as a police captain. The obvious way to find out the answer to that question is to talk to other people who work in the al-yarmouk station and see what they say.

Here's a link to where I explained this to you previously. (I also explained this in replies to ziggurat, rikzilla, and NoZed; I'll provide links for you to those posts later.)

... Rather than painting a bullseye on Jamil Hussein and his family, I think a better approach is to talk to the other police officers at al-Yarmouk station to see if they believe that Jamil Hussein exists, works in their station, and is a police captain, or not...

Three decades ago, when I first began reading Randi's articles about testing people who claimed to have psychic powers, one thing I noticed was how unnecessarily complicated the methods of testing adopted by people such as Targ and Puthoff were, and how simple and direct Randi's methods were. That same principle underlies the way the million dollar challenge is conducted. The people making paranormal claims often come up with elaborate procedures which, when analyzed, would not actually show whether they had the power they claim or not. JREF works with the claimant to come up with a simple, straightforward test of whether the claimant can do what they say they can. What often puzzles me is why people posting in the Politics forum seek to test claims using Targ-Puthoff types of methods rather than Randiesque ones. Why complicate the matter unnecessarily, the way you are suggesting, when there is a simple way which gets right to the heart of the matter?

There is one problem with what I have suggested -- one I have mentioned in previous posts. It is that the new MOI policy forbids the police officers from talking to the media unless they are on MOI's approved list. MOI has threatened to punish police officers who speak to the media without authorization, and it has threatened to take actions against any media outlet which publishes stories based on what unauthorized officers tell them.

In order to clear this matter up, pressure should be put on MOI (a) to allow reporters to talk freely with the people working at the al-Yarmouk station, and (b) to allow the media to report what these people tell them, without reprisals against either the police officers or the media outlets.

Your reluctance to consider MOI's role in getting this question answered -- and your continued efforts to focus entirely on AP instead -- suggest you may have a blind spot on this matter.

 

[Mycroft]

I. The central issue is a report that 6 Sunnis were burned alive by Shiite militia in Hurriyah on November 24.

Honestly I don’t see this as being central. I personally believe it’s more likely than not that the event did happen. I am a little puzzled at reports that the DOI can’t confirm it, because by reports there should be a damaged mosque door and about 20 corpses as hard physical evidence.

2: that MOI has rules which prohibit poice officers from speaking to the press unless they are on MOI's list of approved sources;
3: that MOI will punish police officers who speak to the media without permission;
4: that MOI will punish media outlets which print stories MOI does not approve of.

These rules were put in place in response to this specific incident. As it stands such a policy can be rationalized precisely because it seems that AP reporters have been duped by sources that are not who they seemed to be. Further investigation with evidence one way or another would either affirm the need for this policy or undermine it. Either way it’s difficult to imagine the DOI punishing further investigation as either it would support what they’ve already done or place them in a position where they would embarrass themselves by pursuing it further.

If the reporter was able to talk with other officers while at the station, that supports the idea that Jamil Hussein is an actual police captain. If the reporter was restricted to talking only to the person claiming to be Jamil Hussein, that lends weight to the possibility the reporter was being conned.

I’d like to add here that there are many possibilities not being considered. One that comes to my mind is that Captain Hussein may not be a hoax perpetuated on AP reporters, but may be a fabrication of one or more AP reporters who simply made up some sources to lend extra credibility to their stories. Sort of like a student cheating on a term paper by citing sources that don’t exist.

NOTE: This was an attempt at showing in a humorous way why Mycroft's suggested methods for verifying Hussein's identity is not a good one. But since humor is often misunderstood around here, I'll respond seriously as well.

It seems to me your “humor” is rife with assumptions that are not in evidence. Chief among them that this DOI policy would be implemented in the most draconian way imaginable.

When Randi is testing someone who claims to have paranormal abilities, he tries to come up with a test which a person who genuinely had the claimed abilities would be able to pass but which a person who did not have the claimed abilities would fail. That's an admirable way of doing things, and one I wish more people tried to do.

The method you have designed for verifying Jamil Hussein's reality is not such a test. It is a test which, whether Jamil Hussein is genuine or a fake, he and AP are unlikely to be able to go along with. As such it would be useful only to show he is a fake -- not to show that he is genuine.

You and Varwoche seem to be going to extraordinary lengths to make a simple act of employment verification seem like an impossible task. You use amazing ingenuity in manufacturing obstacles, but then suddenly become dense before your imagination can kick out a solution.

(1) One obvious reason why AP and Jamil Hussein are unlikely to agree to what you propose is that putting Jamil Hussein and his family in a spotlight is something which they very likely do not want and cannot afford. Even in the US (which is not a war zone) many people involved in controversial matters prefer not to have their addresses and personal details splashed across the pages of the daily paper.

I don’t remember claiming that we needed to splash his address and phone number across the front page. If I did (and I’m not going to look it up) please feel free to change that detail and go for a biography that describes the man without revealing that personal information. Reading my own local newspapers and magazines, it’s pretty common for me to read biographies of local prominent citizens that tell me a lot about the person without giving me the information I would need to murder them. I assume experienced AP reporters would be able to do the same in Iraq.

In the 1990s Operation Rescue and related groups wanted to put up flyers with the names and addresses of abortion providers and their families -- where they lived, what they looked like, where their children went to school, etc. What you're proposing to do to Jamil Hussein is similar.

No. It’s not.

(2) Even if Jamil Hussein did not object to having himself and his family put in the crosshairs the way you suggest, it would still be a bad idea -- because it would send a message to other AP sources that they, too, could suddenly find themselves pressured to step into the spotlight. Many people -- in the US as well as Iraq -- are willing to talk to the media only if they know they can do so privately.

I made the suggestion with the assumption that Jamil Hussein would cooperate with the idea. We have evidence that he is not adverse to media attention in that he has made himself a source to at least one AP reporter and has allowed his name to be used many times. If he were looking for secrecy, chances are he would not have done that.

If for whatever reason he is reluctant, there are plenty of other ways a person with imagination could verify employment. To verify my own employment, for example, I could produce pay stubs, tax returns, licensing information, business cards, correspondence between myself and various coworkers on company letterhead, and a pile of certifications I’ve accumulated over the years. I’m sure there are Iraqi equivalents.

Let's suppose Jamil Hussein did agree to let his family be interviewed in their home by AP. The AP reporters go there. A woman identifies herself as his wife, and a picture is taken of them (and their kids -- assuming he has any).

And the bloggers respond: Big effin' deal! How do we know these are actually his wife and kids, and not just phonies that AP brought in to play the part?

Here you enter the realm of “The Matrix” or “Vanilla Sky”. We don’t need to consider a world where everything presented to the senses is in doubt. It’s extraordinarily unlikely anyone would fabricate a wife for Captain Hussein when it would be so much easier just to claim he’s a bachelor. Specific details of a persons background are easy to verify, and that’s something reporters are very good at.

 

[a_unique_person]

Don't you get it? Michelle Malkin is an evil conservative and therefore a liar who should be questioned if she says it's sunny outside... the anonymous AP reporter is of god-like purity and one shouldn't dare even look him in the eyes, and never ever question what he says. If the anonymous AP reporter says the world is flat, then the earth is flat dammit and you're a troll for even daring to question it.

Actually, you got it partially right, she is the one claiming the AP is evil, if you look at the poll she put on her website.

 

[varwoche]

These rules were put in place in response to this specific incident.

Which rules...? (1) The rule that cops who aren't on the official list can't talk to reporters or (2) the rule that reporters who report stories deemed false are subject to repercussions?

And in either case, is it on record that the rule was specifically in response to AP, or are you reading between the lines?

I’d like to add here that there are many possibilities not being considered. One that comes to my mind is that Captain Hussein may not be a hoax perpetuated on AP reporters, but may be a fabrication of one or more AP reporters who simply made up some sources to lend extra credibility to their stories.

I'm finding it difficult to keep track of your position...

nobody is claiming that AP is lying about the guy ... Claims not being made 1) The AP is lying.

You and Varwoche seem to be going to extraordinary lengths to make a simple act of employment verification seem like an impossible task.

Though Nova Land's analysis does make sense to me, my comments addressed to you specifically had to do with your surreal suggestion that pictures of Hussein's wife and family be published:

I tell you if I were in charge, the next story to come out of Iraq ... nice pictures of him with his wife and family.

Am I safe in assuming you have rethought this proposal based on...?

please feel free to change that detail and go for a biography that describes the man without revealing that personal information.

I made the suggestion with the assumption that Jamil Hussein would cooperate with the idea.

Catch 22. You continue to overlook that new rules (cue Bill Maher) preclude this.

If for whatever reason he is reluctant, there are plenty of other ways a person with imagination could verify employment. To verify my own employment, for example, I could produce pay stubs...

Sure, that's because there's not a (new) rule in the US precluding you from talking to the press.

 

[Nova Land]

Yesterday I replied to Mycroft post # 97 from page 3. That brings me up to Mycroft post # 107 from page 3 and Mycroft post # 132 (from page 4 -- Yay! starting to get closer to the current page!)

The reply to post # 132 involves some new information about this story. (Actually it's not new -- much of it has been known for quite some time. But it was new to me, and has not previously been posted in this thread, so I wanted to share this information before more time passed.) I'm going to quote from and link to a number of sites to provide that information, which will run to quite a few posts, so I'll hold off on posting more replies to Mycroft's older posts until later today to allow people time to digest this batch.

I apologize again for being a bit farther behind in this thread than the rest of you. But I hope to be on the same page with the rest of you by the end of the week.

 

[Nova Land]

When Dean checked with the Ministry of the Interior to see if there was a Captain Hussein, he was checking the veracity of the claims made by the AP, he was not making an assertion of his own.

No, that is incorrect. Dean asserted that a check of MOI records showed no trace of a Jamil Hussein working as an Iraqi police officer.

Dean's assertion relates to AP's use of Jamil Hussein as a source for the story about 6 Sunni's being burned alive. But he is not simply asking if AP's assertions are correct. He is not simply speculating that AP's assertions are incorrect. He is making an assertion of his own, and it is not something which should be accepted unquestioningly.

I explained this for rikzilla, in post 161. Since I posted that after you had posted this, you may already have read that. But in case you haven't, I'm happy to explain it again.

A good analogy is a courtroom trial. The prosecution asserts that the defendant is guilty of a crime, and puts forward a number of subsidiary claims to support that charge. For example, one subsidiary claim might be that the defendant was present at the scene of the crime.

As you note, the burden is on the prosecution to prove these claims. They need to produce evidence and show that what they are asserting is true. If they do not prove their case, then the defendant is considered not guilty -- even if the defense never says a word.

The defense has a number of options. They have the option of doing nothing, if they feel the prosecution has not presented anything worth responding to. They have the option of cross-examining the witness -- i.e. raising questions. Or they have the option of putting up their own witnesses and evidence to try to show the prosecution claim is false.

When Dean claimed that a check of MOI records showed no trace of Jamil Hussein, he was exercising the third option: putting forward his own witness (the MOI person who told claimed to have run a records check) to counter the AP witness (the reporter who claimed to have met with police captain Jamil Hussein in his office at the the al-Yarmouk police station).

When the prosecution puts on a witness, both the witness and their testimony gets scrutinized to see how much weight it should carry. When the defense puts on a witness, the witness and testimony also need to be scrutinized. You seem to be arguing that defense witnesses should be exempt from scrutiny. If that really what you believe?

There really isn't anything more [Michael Dean] can do to provide evidence except to repeat what he has already done.

No, there is a great deal more which Dean could do.

Dean gave a very ambiguous and non-detailed statement. He said that MOI had done a records check which proved "definitively" that Jamil Hussein is not an Iraqi police officer. But he failed to provide any of the details we need in order to know how reliable or "definitive" his conclusion actually is. As a very simple and obvious example, he failed to state exactly which records were checked. Was it pay records? Duty rosters? What?

And how reliable are these records? How reliable is the search method? Most of us have had experiences of using search engines which failed to turn up something we knew existed, so just saying the magic words "records search" seems to me a less-than-definitive way of settling the issue.

What (if any) other methods did Dean and the MOI use to check on Jamil Hussein's existence? Did they, for example, get in touch with the al-Yarmouk police station and talk to people there to try to ascertain whether anyone at the station was familiar with a police captain named Jamil Hussein who talked regularly with the AP? That would seem like an obvious and logical thing to do -- but Dean makes no mention of having done so. He could clarify now whether he had done so -- and, if so, what the result had been.

If Dean is correct that Jamil Hussein is not an Iraqi police officer, providing these details would make his claim stronger. Everything you say about the value of the AP providing more details applies to Dean and the MOI as well. But for some reason, you don't want to press Dean for more details and you don't even seem to realize there are more details to press him for.

As a skeptic, I am interested in scrutinizing the statements of all the key parties in this matter. That, to me, is the essence of skepticism. What you are doing -- subjecting statements by one side in a dispute to an high level of scrutiny, while avoiding subjecting the other side to a similar level of scrutiny -- seems to me to be the antithesis of skepticism.

 

[Nova Land]

Take away all the political spin, we still have the issue of if Capt. Jamil Hussein and about a dozen other persons are real people or not. It's been weeks now since the issue was raised, and the question still has not be answered.

I have good news for you: it has been answered in at least one case.

Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who was on the list Michael Dean provided of dubious sources -- the list rikzilla was so impressed by, back in post # 67 -- is a real person. He is, among other things, the person who conducted the MOI press conference on November 30th at which MOI denounced AP for getting stories from sources other than the MOI.

Abdul-Karim Khalaf is also the person who announced that MOI would be monitoring news coverage and taking action against police officers who talked to the media without permission from MOI and media outlets that printed these stories -- a news story I linked to back in post # 103.

It turns out Khalaf was a genuine, fully-authorized source after all. Ooopsy! Dean wasn't as careful in compiling the list, or in checking the people on the list out before releasing the list, as the bloggers (and some posters here) assumed he was.

Dean's failure to recognize the existence and legitimacy of one MOI's chief spokespeople is an interesting mistake to make. The way this mistake came to light is equally interesting.

When the list was released, right-wing bloggers began looking up all the stories these people had been sources for, to see if they could detect a pattern of anti-American bias in the stories. And sure enough, the bloggers could. This guy Abdul-Karim Khalaf apparently told some real whoppers, which only a willfully blind media (or one that was working with the insurgents) could have fallen for...

Except that one of the right-wing bloggers was struck by an odd coincidence: the name of this person they were in the process of vilifying as an enemy propagandist ("Abdul-Karim Khalaf") turned out to be the same as the name of the MOI spokesperson who denounced AP for using dubious sources ("Abdul-Karim Khalaf "). It couldn't be the same person -- could it? So Michelle Malking e-mailed Michael Dean to ask about this -- at which point he admitted, in an e-mail to her, that the two were indeed the same man, and that the list he had provided in his statement was simply "a working list of spokespeople we are in the process of trying to verify that hadn’t been updated."

Here's how "Allahpundit", one of Michelle Malkin's associates, described the discovery:

"A possibly stupid question about the AP/Centcom kerfuffle":

Jim Hoft, a.k.a. Gateway Pundit, has a new post up on a big news story from September about trenches being dug around Baghdad. The source for the story? Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, an Iraqi official who just so happens to be on Centcom’s list of unverified and possibly fake government employees. Jim thinks this calls the trench story into question.

I don’t ... I think the trench story probably was/is true.

But I digress. The stupid question I want to ask here is this:

If Centcom can’t verify the existence of Abdul-Karim Khalaf, then how on earth was he able to give the press conference today on behalf of the Ministry of Interior? He’s the guy who told the press corps this afternoon that Jamil Hussein isn’t an official Iraqi cop. Isn’t he?

... Here’s how Centcom identified the mysterious Abdul-Karim Khalaf on its blacklist of unverified sources:

Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the Interior Ministry spokesman (a.k.a. Police Brigadier Abd al-Karim Khalaf, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, Brig. Abdel-Karim Khalaf)

“Interior Ministry spokesman.” It’s the same guy! So why was there such confusion here? In all likelihood because of the conventions of Arab names. In his e-mail to Michelle this morning, the Centcom spokesman identified the man who would be giving the press conference as “BG Abdul-Kareem.” The “Khalaf” was missing. And in the transcript of the presser that he provided, he was identified as “Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf Al-Kenani.” They probably weren’t able to verify “Abdul-Karim Khalaf” because that precise name doesn’t appear in their database; the surname they’re probably using is “al-Kenani.”

Which brings us to the obvious question: if they could screw up their own spokesman’s name, is it possible that they’ve screwed up Jamil Hussein’s?

I think that's a good question. It's the kind of question I've been encouraging you to ask -- and which you've been insisting doesn't need to be asked, because you mistakenly believe it's only AP that needs to be questioned and challenged.

Allahpundit finishes by asking:

... Exit question: how many more people on Centcom’s source blacklist are simple cases of mistaken identity?

That is an excellent question.

Those of you (such as rikzilla) who believed the length of the list strengthened the case against AP were mistaken in your judgment of the evidence. The length of the list did not indicate that AP had been careless in who they used as sources; it indicated carelessness and inaccuracy on Michael Dean's part.

Dean has privately admitted that at least one of the names on the list was a legitimate source, as AP maintained. But he made that admission only after being directly questioned about it -- not of his own initiative. And he still has not issued a press release or other public statement acknowledging the error and providing an updated list -- at least none that I've seen.

So: Which of the people listed have turned out to be genuine? Which of the people listed have turned out to be fakes? Which of the people listed are still being checked into, with a determination not yet made? Michael Dean presumably knows the answer to that. It would be helpful if he would share that information publicly.

 

[Nova Land]

Here's something else which should be noted about the incorrect listing of Abdul-Karim Khalaf as an unauthorized source.

When right-wing bloggers thought that Dean's list was accurate, they went searching for the stories the people on the list had been the sources for, to see if they could detect a pattern of bias.

And sure enough, they could! As long as they were under the impression that Abdul-Karim Khalaf was a fake, they were able to detect fakeness in the stories he had been a source for. Here, for example, is a blog entry by Gateway Pundit in which he takes AP to task for falling for such an obviously phony story as one Abdul-Kareem Khalaf told them back in September.

Except the source was genuine. And the story was genuine too -- or so Michelle Malkin's associate Allahpundit is able to discern, now that he is aware that Abdul-Kareem Khalaf actually is a genuine MOI spokesperson.

Doesn't that remind people of something? Because it reminds me a lot of the dowsers JREF has tested, who are able to detect water flowing through pipes with perfect accuracy as long as they know in advance which pipes the water is flowing through, but whose ability to detect water vanishes as soon as they don't know its location in advance.

Randi believes that most of the dowsers he has tested are quite sincere in their belief they can detect water with their rods; likewise, I believe that many of the right-wing bloggers are quite sincere in their belief they can detect sinister motives and enemy propaganda underlying AP stories. But sincere belief is not the same as genuine ability. What's the actual accuracy rate for right-wing bloggers, as opposed to the claimed rate? So far they are not doing very well on this story.

 

[Nova Land]

Right-wing blogger Patterico also has an interesting entry about CENTCOM's error:

“There Are Some Unverified Spokesmen Around, Including . . . ME??” :

... If CENTCOM had the name of the official spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior on its working blacklist — and, as Allah points out, garbled his name in e-mails about the press conference — what does that say about the military’s claims regarding Jamil Hussein?

This does not inspire confidence.

I discovered these posts by AllahPundit and Patterico just recently. It was an accidental discovery; I was fact-checking items in my posts, and these came up in the search list.

So it turns out Michelle Malkin, and those who read her blog, have known for quite some time that the list they have been using as a cudgel against AP is not as reliable as they assumed. My question is: why wasn't this error made more widely known once it was discovered that Dean's list wasn't very reliable after all and that the record checks were of dubious quality? And once it was know that at least one name was clearly a legitimate source, why didn't the right-wing blogs press for clarification on how many other names were still in doubt or had turned out to be genuine after all?

It seems dishonest for right-wing blogs to deceive guys like rikzilla that way. Yes, publicly admitting they were in error might have been embarrassing for the bloggers, and might have led people like rik to be a bit less blindly trusting of their pronouncements in the future. But why should right-wing bloggers be held to a lower standard of truthfulness than AP? If the aim is to get at the truth -- and not simply to beat up on AP -- then this double standard makes no sense.

 

[Nova Land]

Here's another problem. Michael Dean claimed that the MOI record check turned up no one by the name of Jamil Hussein. That may be so. But the fact the record check failed to turn up anyone by that name does not necessarily mean there are no Iraqi police by that name. Marc Danziger at WindsOfChange.net wrote the following entry last week:

These Are Not The Droids You Are Looking For...

December 18, 2006

After talking about this on Friday, I used some old contacts to call friends in Baghdad on Saturday...

So, after some calls, IMs, and e-mail we get a call back by Sat night (California time)/Sunday morning (Baghdad time); there is no Capt. Jamil Hussein at Yarmouk, but there is a Sergeant by that name...

Wait! How can this be? Michael Dean and MOI assured us there was no one by that name in the MOI records.

Are the records faulty? Did someone make a mistake in the search? What?

But wait: there's more. Danziger's friends did some more checking and found there is also:

... a Colonel Jamail Hussein working at Abu Gharib.

So there's also someone with an obvious alternate spelling of the name of the AP source. Why didn't this turn up in the MOI records search?

Previously in this thread, I said that as skeptics we should be be asking questions such as just what records were searched and how reliable are these records? You and rikzilla disagreed, saying it is only those making positive claims whom skeptics need to subject to scrutiny. Do you still feel that way? Or do you begin to understand that all evidence which is put forward needs to be examined and questioned, regardless of who is putting it forward, before any weight is given to it?

 

[Nova Land]

And the story doesn't end there. In addition to writing about what his friends found out, Marc Danziger also mentioned something Michelle Malkin had come up with:

... today, Michelle Malkin ran a post -- prompted by her pushing on CENTCOM -- that the real source for the stories is a guy named CPT Jamil Ghdaab, who is being spoken with by CENTCOM and has acknowledged being the source for the stories.

Interesting!

Except that since then, Malkin has retracted that story and scrubbed the blog entry from her site. Here is the most recent entry I can find at her blog relating to this:

Tracing "Jamil Hussein's" footsteps and ignoring anti-blog hatred

According to two CPATT officials -- one in the U.S, one in Iraq -- there is no one named "Jamil Hussein" working now or ever at either at the Yarmouk or al Khadra police stations. That is what they have said all along and nothing has changed.

The Baghdad-based CPATT officer says there is no "Sgt. Jamil Hussein" at Yarmouk, which contradicts what Marc Danziger's contacts found...

So Danziger's contacts were able to find both a Jamil Hussein and a Jamail Hussein, but Malkin's contacts weren't. Danziger said his contacts talked to police at the al-Yarmouk station. Malkin doesn't detail how her contacts did their checking. I'll give a very slight edge to Danziger probably being right.

Malkin's theory is that the AP source is a police captain Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim, whom she says has been interviewed by MOI but who denies being the AP source. That sounds like a plausible theory to me. Whether he actually will turn out to be the source remains to be seen.

Eason Jordan's IraqSlogger blog also has an entry on this search (and the conflicting reports people are getting), although there's not much new in it once one has read Danziger's and Malkin's entries. Essentially, what Jordan says boils down to:

Now the story becomes murkier ... there's no conclusive evidence, either way.

But he does give a good explanation of why verifying Jamil Hussein's existence (or non-existence) is not as easy as it might sound:

IraqSlogger's two biggest concerns: determining the ground truth and not losing lives in the process.

The Baghdad neighborhood where the disputed episode occurred, Hurriya, is a dangerous Shia area, while the neighborhoods where Captain Jamil Hussein is supposedly based (Yarmouk and/or Khadraa) are volatile Sunni-dominated Sunni-Shia mixed areas.

Iraqi police are themselves the frequent target of terrorist and insurgent attacks -- thousands have been killed -- and police stations are difficult-to-approach fortresses. Iraqi police have understandable anxieties and suspicions when outsiders start poking around in an effort to track down a certain police officer. Also worrisome: Some Iraqi police are alleged to be members of sectarian death squads. Bottom line: This effort to find Jamil Hussein is dangerous for all involved on the ground.

I believe the key to resolving this question is talking in person with the people who actually work at al-Yarmouk. Those who have done so -- AP's reporter, Danziger's Iraq contacts -- seem to be coming up with results which differ from those who have only gone through file records. Until we are provided with more information about these file records, I am inclined to give very little weight to them.

Getting people to talk is a skill. It's what good reporters do. If competent reporters actually go to the al-Yarmouk police station, are able to talk freely with the people who work there, and are not able to find people who know the police captain who was the AP source, that will be good evidence he is non-existent.

 

[Mycroft]

Caught up yet?