I Was Wrong About the AP

Sort of.

Apparently, the Ministry of the Interior has announced there is a police officer named Jamil Hussein after all.

Previous U.S. military claims that the AP's alleged source didn't exist were based on the lack of corroboration by the MoI, which six weeks later, has finally emerged.

So I was wrong to pile on AP for this.

(However, military officers did go and visit the four mosques Capt. Hussein claimed had been destroyed in retaliation for the Thanksgiving Day Sadr City bombings, and found that only one even had slight fire damage. So AP may still have been guilty of "accuate but fake" reporting.)

To my continued surprise, Eason Jordan once again has the best analysis on how nobody comes out of this episode with reputation unblemished.