The Associated Press’s credibility lies on the ground in tatters this morning, because none of their claims about “Jamil Hussein’s” reports check out: Destroyed - Not.

The bottom line: the only facts that weren’t fabricated were greatly exaggerated.

AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll indignantly attacked those who had questioned the global news organization’s reporting: “I never quite understood why people chose to disbelieve us about this particular man on this particular story,” she told Editor and Publisher. “AP runs hundreds of stories a day, and has run thousands of stories about things that have happened in Iraq.”

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.”

One of the mosques identified by the AP, the Nidaa Alah mosque, had been abandoned and vacant at the time it was hit with small-arms fire, say Iraqi and U.S. Army officials. Two of its inside rooms were burned out by a lobbed firebomb, according to an Army report.

Three other mosques in the area - the al Muhaymin, al Mushahiba and Ahbab Mustafa mosques - sustained small-arms fire damage to their exteriors; the Mustafa mosque also had two rooms burned out by a firebomb.

Contrary to Hussein and the AP’s account, military reports note that Iraqi Army battalion members were on the scene - pursuing attackers, securing the area, calling the fire department, providing support and an outer cordon.

Neither The New York Times nor The Washington Post was able to confirm AP’s story.

The AP quoted one corroborating witness, Imad al-Hasimi, a Sunni elder in Hurriya, who “confirmed Hussein’s account” of the immolated Sunnis on Al-Arabiya television. When Al-Hasimi later recanted, AP implied that it was due to pressure from Iraqi government officials. The other possibility: He recanted because it wasn’t true.

Capt. Aaron Kaufman of Task Force Justice, which works closely with the Iraqi Army battalion that was on the scene and monitored events as they happened, told us: “It was blown way out of proportion, there was nobody lit on fire.”

Capt. Stacy Bare, the civil-affairs officer who took us on patrol in Hurriya, concurred: “There were no six Sunnis burned.”

I’ll be expecting apologies any minute now from all the mainstream media outlets and mean-spirited loony left bloggers who rushed to crow and gloat when the Associated Press issued their deceptive statements.

Not.

Bloggers like Glenn “Sock Puppet” Greenwald and Markos “Screw Them” Moulitsas showed absolutely no concern for the truth when they scrambled to score their cheap points, and they’ll show no concern for the truth now. That’s how the “reality-based” community operates.

But there is a much bigger question. How much of the news AP and Reuters report from Iraq has been similarly distorted, invented, and exaggerated?

UPDATE at 1/21/07 8:13:07 am:

Here’s Markos drooling and gloating: Daily Kos: Rubbing it in.

UPDATE at 1/21/07 8:31:49 am:

More photos of the very un-destroyed mosques at Michelle Malkin’s blog: Fact-checking the AP and Jamil Hussein.

UPDATE at 1/21/07 8:54:34 am:

Bob Owens has continued to look into other reports the Associated Press attributed to “Jamil Hussein:” Hussein of Cards.

UPDATE at 1/21/07 12:06:36 pm:

Curt responds at Flopping Aces.