The Smearing Of Jamie Leigh

By Cernig

And so the serious smearing begins of a 22 year old Houston girl, Jamie Leigh Jones, who was gang raped by KBR contractors in Iraq. Bob Owens of the Pajamahedeen and Confederate Yankee is on the case.

He finds that ABC hyped their story some but doesn't knock a single hole in Jamie's testimony. The rape kit wasn't handed to KBR, it was State ineptitude that lost and found it again. It wasn't a shipping container, it was a living container (with air conditioning) she was imprisoned in. Both these findings are consistent with Jamie's own account and court filings, if not with ABC's. Yet Owens at no point makes it clear that this is the case, deliberately blurring the lines between the ABC story and Jamie's own account to make it appear - without a shred of proof - that Jamie is complicit in ABC's tabloid reporting of actual facts.

But Jamie Leigh's website has removed her journal page, probably because the woman who experienced this traumatic experience is sick of it being poured over feverishly by rightwing "gotcha" seekers like Owens. It is implied with weasel words that this points to Jamie Leigh having something to hide.

And so, although Owens carefully doesn't quite say so in his Pajama's Media post, the mass of wingnut black helicopter theorists catch his intent - that Jamie Leigh is making the whole story up. One commenter opines that: this is their way of avoiding the good news of Iraq and instead focus on "the evils of President Bush's war." The rest aren't far behind.

Over at his own blog, though, Owens has a CYA for his hatchet-job.

For those of you who might expect me to be trying to debunk the case... don't.

Though there are some inconsistencies with certain aspects of the case and the way it has been reported, absolutely nothing seems to contradict the key claim that she was savagely, brutally raped. Nothing contradicts the fact that she has not be able to find justice for 2 years.

I think she's a brave young woman, and hope that she can find both emotional and physical healing.

Bob Owens should be ashamed of himself for not putting those exact words in his PJM post. At the very least, he should go back and put them in comments to that post. Better still if he amended the post.

Update In an added twist -

One of the charges being levelled at Jamie Leigh Jones by prospective "debunkers" is that she alleges she was held under armed guard by KBR but KBR doesn't have it's own armed security.

They're correct. KBR is meant to get all its security details from the US military...but KBR is under a cloud because it might have to pay back $400 million because it sub-contracted other companies to provide it with private armed guards anyway. The Army has admitted that KBR did this in violation of its contract already.

Can you guess who the biggest contractor to provide armed guards for KBR is?

I'll give you a hint. It begins with "B" and ends with "water".