BAGHDAD (AP) -- The Interior Ministry acknowledged Thursday that an Iraqi police officer whose existence had been denied by the Iraqis and the U.S. military is in fact an active member of the force, and said he now faces arrest for speaking to the media.

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. [...]

Khalaf told the AP that an arrest warrant had been issued for the captain for having contacts with the media in violation of the ministry's regulations.

Hussein told the AP on Wednesday that he learned the arrest warrant would be issued when he returned to work on Thursday after the Eid al-Adha holiday. His phone was turned off Thursday and he could not be reached for further comment.

Hussein appears to have fallen afoul of a new Iraqi push, encouraged by some U.S. advisers, to more closely monitor the flow of information about the country's violence, and strictly enforce regulations that bar all but authorized spokesmen from talking to media. [...]

... [M]ost news organizations working in Iraq have maintained Iraqi police contacts routinely in recent years. Some officers who speak with reporters withhold their names or attempt to disguise their names using different variants of one or two middle names or last names for reasons of security. Hussein, however, spoke for the record, using his authentic first and last name, on numerous occasions.

His first contacts with the AP were in 2004, when the current Interior Ministry and its press apparatus was still being formed out of the chaotic remains of the Saddam-era ministry.

The information he provided about various police incidents was never called into question until he became embroiled in the attempt to discredit the AP story about the Hurriyah mosque attack.

At least Malkin and her warblogger friends can take comfort that their high dudgeon about Captain Hussein is going to lead to his arrest and, who knows, maybe even torture at the hands of the Shi'a controlled Interior Ministry. Thanks to the brouhaha these wingnut fanatics created out of thin air, the US authorities and Iraq's "sovereign government" now feel the need to punish the good Captain for talking to an American media outlet about what's been going down on the mean streets of Baghdad. I'll bet he'll serve as a very good example for other Iraqis who might feel the urge to talk to reporters whenever someone decides to murder,rape, torture or burn to death some of their countrymen. I'm sure it will impress upon all of them that it would be better to simply keep their big mouths shut whenever a reporter arrives on the scene of another episode of carnage.

Way to go Michelle and all you wingnut Iraq war wannabees. Jamil Hussein may be alive now, but with any luck he won't ever be a source again for one of those "bad news" stories from Iraq the "liberal media" keeps writing.

Mission Accomplished!

Ps. It seems Michelle has decided to move forward. After all her trip to Iraq was never really focused on proving Captain Hussein was a fake. It was to do some "real reporting about what's relly happening in Baghdad, while she's escorted around town by a military escort for her protection. I can't wait to hear what she has to report on how swimmingly things are going in old Baghdad, can you?

Michelle Malkin Jamil Hussein Iraq Associated Press Media Reports from Iraq Sectarian Violence Jamil Hussein controversy Ace of Spades Eason Jordan Iraqi atrocities Iraq Interior Ministry Centcom Abdul-Karim Khalaf Disinformation Censorship