Drill the Whistleblower

The rightwing's fevered dreams that the AP posted a story about atrocities in Iraq using a non-existent witness - one Jamil Hussein - have gone up in smoke. As the AP reports, the Interior Ministry has recanted its earlier misstatements and has admitted that the witness is , in fact, real.

But catch these two notes in the story:

Hussein was not the original source of the disputed report of the attack; the account was first told on Al-Arabiya satellite television by a Sunni elder, Imad al-Hashimi, who retracted it after members of the Defense Ministry paid him a visit. Several neighborhood residents subsequently gave the AP independent accounts of the Shiite militia attack on a mosque in which six people were set on fire and killed.

[The Ministry spokesman] 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.

So, while you are sure to see a huge effort at ass covering by the righty wingnuts who ran with this foolish story; you're not likely to hear one condemning the retaliatory activities being taken by the new Iraqi government against witnesses who describe human rights abuses.

The right must be so proud of their new Saddams.