AP Reports Jamil Hussein Does Exist

Iraq's Interior Minister has conceded that a Captain Jamil Hussein is currently on the Iraqi police force, and that he is now subject to arrest for unauthorized leaks to the media.

From the Associated Press:

Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press.

The captain, whose full name is Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, was one of the sources for an AP story in late November about the burning and shooting of six people during a sectarian attack at a Sunni mosque.

The U.S. military and the Iraqi Interior Ministry raised the doubts about Hussein in questioning the veracity of the AP's initial reporting on the incident, and the Iraqi ministry suggested that many news organization were giving a distorted, exaggerated picture of the conflict in Iraq. Some Internet bloggers spread and amplified these doubts, accusing the AP of having made up Hussein's identity in order to disseminate false news about the war.

The "burning six" story that brought Hussein to prominence is still very much in doubt, however, with Hussein as the only named source who hasn't recanted.

AP's stonewalling and shenanigans in refusing to produce their source, once the story came into serious doubt, remain unexplained.