Time to pray

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006634.htm

My blogging has been lighter than usual the past few weeks due to family time, Fox News duties, holiday chaos, holiday illness--and, yes, planning for a trip to Iraq. As you know, ex-CNN newsman Eason Jordan extended an invitation to me three weeks ago to go to Iraq to investigate the Associated Press/"Jamil Hussein" story. He offered to pay for a trip. As you'll recall, I asked if he would offer to cover travel and security costs for Curt from Flopping Aces--who broke open the story of AP's dubious sources on Thanksgiving weekend and continues to lead the blogospheric search for the truth. Jordan agreed.

I spoke with Jordan by phone before Christmas to learn more details of his offer, which I'm not going to get into for privacy and security reasons. (He asked that his discussion be off the record.) I let him know that I had received invitations to embed with the military and planned to follow up on some of these offers concurrently with the investigation of the AP's reporting. Since our conversation, things have moved at a fast pace on the embed side. Over the holidays, my Hot Air colleague Bryan Preston and I received word that our embed applications had been approved. We have been busy preparing our families and ourselves for the journey. Our overarching goals are two-fold:

1) to report on how the troops perceive mainstream media coverage of the war (with a particular focus on the wire services relying on local stringers); and

2) to report on progress and interaction between U.S. troops and Iraqi Army trainees.

The "Jamil Hussein" story is one important item on our agenda, but not the only one. As Curt and other bloggers on this story have noted from the beginning, Jamilgate isn't just about "Jamil Hussein." Bryan and I plan to do as much on-the-ground reporting as we can to nail down unresolved questions--not only about Jamil Hussein and the Hurriya six burning Sunnis allegations, but also about the AP four burning mosque story discrepancies and the many other AP sources that our military has publicly challenged--including " Lt. Maitham Abdul Razzaq" and more than a dozen police officers listed by U.S. military spokesman Navy Lt. Michael Dean. There's also the issue of detained AP photographer Bilal Hussein. And we are looking forward to reporting first-hand on the security situation in Iraq outside the so-called "Green Zone" (International Zone) and talking to as many American and Iraqi Army troops with insights on these and other broader matters.

I am very heartened by Eason Jordan's post yesterday challenging the Associated Press's credibility, but am puzzled that his own crew in Baghdad still has nothing new to report more than a month after bloggers first started raising questions. I hope Jordan follows up on the most recent investigative developments in the blogosphere. As of Dec. 21, the AP refuses to answer these simple questions :

I find Malkin a vile person, but this.....

Malkin thinks this is all bullshit, that the media is lying.

Eason Jordan is going to teach her a lesson, a savage lesson and one she is not prepared to learn.
She cost him his job, well, it's time for her learn something about that job

She thinks she can flit around the red zone with no training and actually do more than shit her pants?

She is way over her head here and has no clue. She's going to play reporter and people die doing that.

Bob Woodruff and Kimberly Dozier were experienced, protected reporters and left Iraq via the Balad-Rhein Main evac flight.

Iraq isn't a game, or a joke. And as much as I dislike what she does, I don't think some private has to die in an IED explosion because she is stupid. She literally seems to have no clue as to the risks she proposes to take. She thinks she does, but if she did, she wouldn't be planning to run around asking Iraqis questions.