The Burning Sunni Update

Michelle Malkin and Bryan Preston visited the al-Hurriya area to check out the truthiness of the AP "Burning Sunni" story. She reports on the results in today's New York Post.

DESTROYED - NOT

Well, Bryan Preston and I visited the area during our Iraq trip last week. Several mosques did, in fact, come under attack by Mahdi Army forces. But the "destroyed" mosques all still stand. Iraqi and U.S. Army officials say that two of them received no fire damage whatsoever. Another, which we filmed, was abandoned and empty when it was attacked.

WE obtained summary reports and photos filed at the time by Iraqi and U.S. Army troops on the scene. They contain no corroborating evidence of Hussein's claim that "Shiite militiamen grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive near Iraqi soldiers who did not intervene."

I do have a gripe with Malkin's account, wherein she states says that AP "quoting an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman who reversed course and verified Hussein's existence and employment" had cleared up some of the confusion. No, the AP self-vindication from Steven Hurst (whose byline, we note, appeared on the original "Burning Sunni" story that ran in hundreds of newspapers worldwide) does NOT directly quote the Interior Ministry spokesman as saying such but notably dances around it, and further investigation reveals that the person claimed as "Jamil Hussein" does not count "Hussein" among his names, and does not admit ever having talked to AP.

But it sounds really truthy....

[Cross-posted to Rathergate.com.]