http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1284969 In July 2003, the Washington Post published a harrowing account of the torture of an Assyrian Christian woman in Baghdad. The woman, Jumana Hanna, took Post reporter Peter Finn to the prison where she said she had been jailed, tortured and raped for nothing more than marrying a non-Iraqi. Ms Hanna told the reporter her husband had been killed in a nearby prison and his lifeless body was later passed to her. After the Post story appeared, US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz mentioned it in testimony to the US Senate: "There is a positive aspect in the distressing story of Jumana Hanna. That is her courage in coming forward to offer U.S. officials what is very likely credible information, information that is helping us to root out Baathist policemen who routinely tortured and killed prisoners." American officials in Iraq protected Jumana Hanna from possible reprisals and the U.S. government eventually helped her resettle in northern California. Her story, considered to be an important document of an evil regime, was to be published in a book, written by an experienced California-based journalist, Sara Solovitch. snip It did not take long for a professional journalist to find out that very few if any details of Jumana Hanna’s account were true. She was not married to a foreigner, but to an Iraqi Arab. Her husband was not killed and was probably never in prison. Ms Hanna may have been jailed for a few months, but most likely for prostitution. One of her key witnesses appears to be a boyfriend to whom she has been sending money from the United States. So what is the true story of Jumana Hanna? “It’s just a story about a homeless prostitute who single-handedly fooled the Pentagon, the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Washington Post,” says Sara Solovitch. Jumana Hanna also fooled many ordinary Americans who, touched by her story, rushed to deposit charitable contributions into the Iraqi woman’s account.
