Threads Unravel in Iraqi's Tale - Wash Post Admits Being Dupes

[RBHam]

Story of Husband's Execution Contradicted by Relatives Who Say He Is Alive

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, January 20, 2005; Page A18

An Iraqi woman who was granted refugee status in the United States after telling The Washington Post and U.S. officials that she had been imprisoned, tortured and sexually assaulted in Iraq during the 1990s appears to have made false claims about her past, according to a fresh examination of her statements.

Jumana Michael Hanna also claimed that her husband, Haitam Jamil Anwar, had been executed during the rule of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Her testimony led to the arrest of several Iraqi security officials. Based on her testimony, U.S. officials took her into protective custody in Baghdad and then to the United States.

She was the subject of a lengthy article in The Post in July 2003. Later, a writer who was interested in collaborating with Hanna on a book concluded that she was not telling the truth. The writer's article appears in the January issue of Esquire magazine.

In recent interviews in Baghdad, Hanna's in-laws -- including her husband's brother, uncle and cousin -- all said the husband was alive and had left Iraq several months ago. They also said that although Hanna was imprisoned in Baghdad in the 1990s, it was not for the reason she told The Post.

more...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22249-2005Jan19.html?referrer=email

[displacedtexan]

1. "... in the January issue of Esquire Magazine."

Typical.

MSM Motto: Only disclose if forced to.

[LynnTheDem]

2. She's a female CHALABI; liar and con artist

And just like CHALABI, the warmongering mouth-breathing rightwingnuts swallowed every lie.

You CAN fool a rightwingnut ALL the time!

[JNelson6563]

3. She couldn't keep it straight

as she gave more interviews her stories changed:

Hanna told Solovitch, for instance, that she attended Oxford University in Britain, although she could speak very little English; she had told The Post that she had taken business courses in Baghdad. She told Esquire that she had a bizarre, direct encounter with Uday Hussein, although she had told The Post that she never saw or heard him. She also told Esquire that other female prisoners were killed in a gruesome fashion. In interviews with The Post, she spoke of beatings and rapes of female prisoners, but not of killings.