HT Flopping Aces

Here's more on this developing story from Curt at Flopping Aces. I'm starting a new thread because the other was getting a little long in the tooth :-).

AP issued a press release standing by it's story. Iraqi gov't issues press release that "police captain" does not work for the gov't. Further they can find no evidence that such an event took place. Iraqi gov't forming unit to monitor press coverage and will request false stories be retracted. Some media sources claiming this smacks of censorship.

AP issued another release saying this source has been reliable in the past and that they are not going to rely solely on official government sources.

AP so far has not produced the "police captain." AP says there are three witnesses who confirmed the six Sunni burning story. AP silent on issue that only one mosque was partially burned and not the six as reported in the original story.

Here's the latest AP story as carried by the Washington Post.

Here's the latest update from Curt that includes the releases from the AP and the Iraqi government as of 1545 HRS PST:

Getting The News From The Enemy, Update IV

RBT posted this comment in Flopping Aces latest thread:

I think the AP was just sloppy and didn't source their story well.

Not that this was an out and out lie, but whoever this "captain" is co-opted them in their haste to get the story out.

I think you're right on the mark re the six mosques. That should be fairly easy to confirm. I haven't seen anything on this yet. Should be a hot tip there's something fishy here.

Of course they now have wits. My feeling is this story that was being hyped by the Sunnis to further inflame the sectarian violence.

All factions are now jockeying for power after our midterm elections. The Sunnis probably stand to loose the most if we pull out of Baghdad.

Update:

HT Right Wing Nuthouse

Rick Moran of Right Wing Nuthouse has these interesting observations re the AP and their client newspapers that don't seem to want to hold them accountable.

STRINGING US ALONG

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Bizzy Blog has this new information:

Tonight’s Jamil ‘Captain Tuttle’ Hussein and AP (Always Paranoid) Update

# AP now admits that the part of the original story about four mosques burning is down to one that is “badly damaged by explosives and shows signs of scorching from fire.” I am not aware of any formal correctons sent out to AP subscribers to correct this stunning error.

# No name identification of the remaining five alleged victims has been done. A person from AP who called me back in response to my phone request to speak with John Daniszewski, and my message left for him (my message was left with a person, not on his VoiceMail), confirmed this fact this afternoon. I informed this person that I was having a hard time believing that in roughly six days, some local Iraqi news outlet hadn’t published the names of the victims yet (that is, if there are really five other victims). I was told they’re “doing all they can.”

[...]

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Allahpundit of Hot Air is cautioning though re the difficulty of Arabic names on "official lists."

A possibly stupid question about the AP/Centcom kerfuffle

HT American Thinker

RBT has been saying this for years.

RBT

*****

November 28, 2006
Revisiting (and Reliving) 1938
By Rick Richman

“It is 1938; Iran is Germany; and it is racing to acquire nuclear weapons.” Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly punctuated his speech in Los Angeles earlier this month with that sentence. It was an effective rhetorical device, conveying both a sense of threat and a sense of urgency.

But 1938 may be relevant in more ways than as a rhetorical device. Revisiting that year, through Winston Churchill’s compelling account in “The Gathering Storm,” is an instructive exercise, and one the Iraq Study Group might consider as it completes its deliberations.

[...]

Flash forward to 2006. Israel is in the sixth year of a barbaric war against its civilians, featuring mass-murder suicide bombers and rockets intentionally rained on civilian areas -- after Israel attempted in 2000 to “meet every demand which was not designed to compass their ruin as a State.”

In 2006, Israel is subject to a continual drumbeat of de-legitimizing rhetoric that dwarfs what fell upon Czechoslovakia. The rhetoric includes charges of “apartheid,” accusations its formation was an historic “mistake,” and descriptions of its existence as an “anachronism.” Iran says Israel should be “wiped off the map,” and its threat against another U.N. member goes un-remarked upon at the U.N.

At the same time, barbaric attacks on civilians, with the obvious assistance of Iran and Syria, are effectively used to stifle the creation of a democratic government in Iraq after it was freed in a three-week war from one of the most brutal dictators of the age. In Lebanon, an Iranian proxy controls the southern part of the country and the democratic government is subjected to threats from the proxy and the continual assassination of political leaders adverse to Syrian control, with the principal suspects being the highest level of the Syrian government.

[...]

In historical terms, it seems clear that Iran and Syria are the Germany and Italy of 2006 -- a totalitarian regime with global ambitions, with a fascist ally, already fighting proxy wars comparable to the Spanish Civil War. But Iran has learned something from history, since, as Netanyahu noted in his speech, it appears to want to avoid the mistake Germany made of going to a broader war before it has a nuclear weapon.

In the impending repetition of the history that Churchill wrote down to warn future generations, it is not yet clear who will be asked to play the role of Czechoslovakia. It might be Israel, or Lebanon, or Iraq -- or perhaps all three. But “grand bargains” are rarely the end of the story. Churchill’s history of the Second World War extended for five more volumes after the one discussing Czechoslovakia.

Rick Richman edits “Jewish Current Issues.” His articles have appeared in American Thinker, The Jewish Press, and the Los Angeles Jewish Journal.

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