Via Atrios, we learn today that the oft-repeated story of the Iraqi children’s prison turns out to be, um, not true.
The orphanage had been home to 107 girls and boys whose parents were killed or imprisoned, or were unable to care for them. As the Americans advanced on Baghdad, they mistook the orphanage for a jail or prison and released all the children who were there.
It was an orphanage. Not a very nice one, from the sounds of it. But it was not a children’s prison, and apparently a number of the orphans we “liberated” are now on the streets begging and possibly prostituting themselves.
If there is one constant to Iraq so far, it is that the truth is always more complicated than the supporters of this quagmire will ever acknowledge. I guess we can add this one to the heap of disinformation they have so gleefully disseminated, along with WMD’s, Jessica Lynch, and the undying gratitude of the liberated Iraqi people. Unfortunately, as a wise man once said, a lie can make it halfway around the globe before the truth gets its boots on — and with the help of the blogs, I’d say lies can make it all the way around the globe, and maybe even have time to start on a second trip. We’ll keep hearing all these stories long after they’ve been discredited, I think. (Hell, people still bring up the Hill&Knowlton-contrived babies & incubators bit from the first Gulf war…)