Newsweek Rescinds Koran Desecration Report

Update 05-16-05 - Karzai Warns Heavy-handed US Troops as Violence Spreads

Reuters Alertnet is reporting that Newsweek has now rescinded the Koran desecration story. Sounds like a lame, LAME attempt at damage control now that dozens have been killed and hundreds injured in riots across the Islamic world. We even have a simmering Holy War, or Jihad, threatened by Afghan clerics...

Newsweek says Koran desecration report is wrong
(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."

"We're not saying it absolutely happened but we can't say that it absolutely didn't happen either." Oh, yeah, that'll appease the irate Muslims. Bet HEAVY pressure came down on Newsweek from the Bush Cabalistas... but what a ham-handed attempt at damage-control propaganda!

Just what we need, 1,000,000,000 Muslims poised to go to war with us. The miracle is that they haven't already !

Bring the Troops home NOW! Stop the Torture! Impeach Bush! Try the Criminals for War Crimes Now!