The Latest on the Crumbling Credibility of Iraq War Coverage
After this post, I suspect I will not be able to keep up with the latest items in this area.
What follows are new items from last night and this morning.
_________________________________
Gateway Pundit has a detailed rundown on fake “police official” Abdul Razzaq, about whom Centcom has officially stated:
Also, we definitely know, as we told you several weeks ago through the MNC-I Media Relations cell, that another AP-popular IP spokesman, Lt. Maithem Abdul Razzaq, supposedly of the city’s Yarmouk police station, does not work at that police station and is also not authorized to speak on behalf of the IP. The MOI has supposedly issued a warrant for his questioning.
Fake “Lieutenant” Razzaq has been quoted or paraphrased eleven times in AP stories between April and November of this year.
_________________________________
Dan Riehl is all over Sameer N. Yacoub, whose “reporting” goes back to the burning and hanging of contractors in 2003 (Daily Kos’s infamous “Screw them” moment), and even to being a mouthpiece for Saddam Hussein. I count about 20 AP stories here just going back to early 2005.
_________________________________
Meanwhile, we’re supposed to just buy in to NBC and MSNBC’s “big decision” to begin calling the situation in Iraq a “civil war.” There’s only one problem — see if you can tell what it is from their first announcement (I bolded the hint; video at link):
The news from Iraq is becoming grimmer every day. Over the long holiday weekend bombings killed more than 200 people in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad. And six Sunni men were doused with kerosene and burned alive. Shiite muslims are the majority, but Sunnis like Saddam Hussein ruled that country until the war. Now, the battle between Shiites and Sunnis has created a civil war in Iraq. Beginning this morning, MSNBC will refer to the fighting in Iraq as a civil war — a phrase the White House continues to resist. But after careful thought, MSNBC and NBC News decided over the weekend, the terminology is appropriate, as armed militarized factions fight for their own political agendas. We’ll have a lots more on the situation in Iraq and the decision to use the phrase, civil war.
Yeah, but as to the bolded incident they cited to support their “civil war” claim ….. “there is no report of any such incident” (that’s a polite way of saying “Unless someone shows us something, IT DIDN’T FREAKING HAPPEN.“) You might expect a retraction, or even a bit of contrition. I believe you will be disappointed.
UPDATE: Via Michelle Malkin, AP has told USA Today, quite brusquely and quite defensively that they stand by the story (“The attempt to question the existence of the known police officer who spoke to the AP is frankly ludicrous and hints at a certain level of desperation to dispute or suppress the facts of the incident in question…” — what is this, a politcal campaign? [Yes? — Ed.]). Fine, AP. Where are the bodies buried, and what are their names? Surely a local Iraqi paper would have identified them.
_________________________________
Finally, when the Washington Post can’t find any current bad news out of Ramadi, it recycles a three-month old report about how bad things were (HT Prairie Pundit), and pretends that it’s still the way things are. Trouble is, embedded Bill Roggio knows better (here and here, just for starters). Zheesh.
