Newsweek
says Koran desecration report is wrong
By David Morgan
Reuters
Sunday, May 15, 2005; 7:01 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Newsweek magazine said on Sunday it erred in a
May 9 report that U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo
Bay, and apologized to the victims of deadly Muslim protests sparked by
the article.
Editor Mark Whitaker said the magazine inaccurately reported that U.S.
military investigators had confirmed that personnel at the detention
facility in Cuba had flushed the Muslim holy book down the toilet.
The report sparked angry and violent protests across the Muslim world
from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to
Pakistan to Indonesia to Gaza. In the past week it was condemned in
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and by the Arab League.
On Sunday, Afghan Muslim clerics threatened to call for a holy war
against the United States.
"We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our
sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught
in its midst," Whitaker wrote in the magazine's latest issue, due to
appear on U.S. newsstands on Monday.
The weekly news magazine said in its May 23 edition that the
information had come from a "knowledgeable government source" who told
Newsweek that a military report on abuse at Guantanamo Bay said
interrogators flushed at least one copy of the Koran down a toilet in a
bid to make detainees talk.
But Newsweek said the source later told the magazine he could not be
certain he had seen an account of the Koran incident in the military
report and that it might have been in other investigative documents or
drafts.
Whitaker told Reuters that Newsweek did not know if the reported toilet
incident involving the Koran ever occurred. "As to whether anything
like this happened, we just don't know," he said in an interview.
"We're not saying it absolutely happened but we can't say that it
absolutely didn't happen either."
INCIDENT UNDER INVESTIGATION
The acknowledgment by the magazine came amid heightened scrutiny of the
U.S. media, which has seen a rash of news organizations fire reporters
and admit that stories were fabricated or plagiarized.
The Pentagon told the magazine the report was wrong last Friday, saying
it had investigated earlier allegations of Koran desecration from
detainees and found them "not credible."
Newsweek reported that Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita reacted
angrily when the magazine asked about the source's continued assertion
that he had read about the Koran incident in an investigative report.
"People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said. How could he
be credible now?" DiRita told Newsweek.
The May 9 report, which appeared as a brief item by Michael Isikoff and
John Barry in the magazine's "Periscope" section, had a huge
international impact, sparking the protests from Muslims who consider
the Koran the literal word of God and treat each book with deep
reverence.
Desecration of the Koran is punishable by death in Afghanistan and
Pakistan.
Newsweek, which said opponents of the Afghan government including
remnants of the Taliban had used its report to fan unrest in the
country, said it was not contemplating disciplinary action against
staff.
"This was reported very carefully, with great sensitivity and concern,
and we'll continue to report on it," said Newsweek Managing Editor John
Meecham. "We have tried to be transparent about exactly what happened,
and we leave it to the readers to judge us."
U.S. officials opened an investigation but maintained that members of
the Guantanamo security force were sensitive to the religious beliefs
and practices of the detainees in U.S. custody.
U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley earlier on Sunday
stressed the report had not been confirmed. "If it turns out to be
true, obviously we will take action against those responsible," Hadley
said on CNN's "Late Edition."
Newsweek's Whitaker said that when the magazine first heard of the
Koran allegation from its source, staff approached two Defense
Department officials. One declined to comment, while the other
challenged a different aspect of the May 9 story but did not dispute
the Koran charge.
The magazine said other news organizations had already aired charges of
Koran desecration based "only on the testimony of detainees."
"We believed our story was newsworthy because a U.S. official said
government investigators turned up this evidence. So we published the
item," Whitaker said.
"Our original source later said he couldn't be certain about reading of
the alleged Koran incident in the report we cited," he wrote.
© 2005 Reuters
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/15/AR2005051500493_pf.html