US: Newsweek magazine has acknowledged that there were errors in a story reporting that US interrogators had desecrated the Koran while attempting to extract intelligence from Muslim prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The report led to a series of violent anti-American protests and at least 14 deaths in Afghanistan.
In its issue published on Sunday, Newsweek said its source for the story backed away from a crucial assertion that investigators had concluded that military personnel had flushed a Koran down the toilet. The conclusion supposedly was included in a soon-to-be-released report.
Newsweek apologised and expressed regret about the violence that followed the story. But the magazine defended its reporting and said it was continuing to investigate allegations that US personnel had desecrated the Muslim holy book.
"We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the US soldiers caught in its midst," Mark Whitaker, Newsweek's editor, wrote in a separate note in Sunday's issue. The admission is likely to focus further scrutiny on the American news media, already suffering from revelations that reporters for major publications fabricated material, lifted quotations or used questionable material from unidentified sources.
In an interview, Whitaker said the magazine had gone to unusual lengths to ensure the accuracy of the original article, including showing a pre-publication draft to a US official, who chose to neither confirm nor deny the essence of the story. Whitaker added that Newsweek doesn't plan to discipline anyone as a consequence of the episode.
But the disclosure triggered a strong rebuke from the Bush administration, which has been dealing with the fallout since the magazine's May 9th report.
"My reaction and I think our reaction is that Newsweek reported something that was factually inaccurate on several points. It's demonstrably wrong, and Newsweek has acknowledged that. But they have not retracted it, and have tried instead to water it down," said Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita.
"They printed a story based on an erroneous source or sources that was demonstrably false and that resulted in riots in which people were killed. I don't know how else to parse it."
Reports of guards desecrating the Koran to unnerve suspects have long circulated among lawyers for detainees at the Guantanamo facility. Newsweek's May 9th "Periscope" column reported that investigators inquiring into problems at the facility had "confirmed some infractions alleged in internal FBI e-mails" that surfaced late last year.
Among the "previously unreported cases" the magazine cited was that "interrogators, in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Koran down a toilet". The story went on to say that the findings were expected to be included in an upcoming report by the US Southern Command in Miami.
Word of the report spread quickly. Protests erupted in Afghanistan, where at least 14 people were killed and more than 100 injured, as well as in neighbouring Pakistan and other parts of the Muslim world.
Governments around the world called on the US to investigate the report immediately and hold accountable anyone found to have been involved. The 22-nation Arab League called for an apology from Washington if the allegations were confirmed.
On Friday, Mr DiRita notified Newsweek that Pentagon investigators had found no credible allegations involving Koran desecration.
On Saturday veteran investigative reporter Michael Isikoff, one of the two authors of the original item, contacted his original source, which the magazine identified as a "longtime reliable source, a senior US government official". The source told Isikoff that while he clearly recalled reading investigative reports about mishandling the Koran, "including a toilet incident", he "could no longer be sure that these concerns had surfaced in the SouthCom report", the magazine reports.
"I am sure the people who were rioting had not read our story, and didn't understand the context," Whitaker said, adding that the magazine never reported that it had independently confirmed the toilet episode - only that US investigators had reached conclusions that were about to be published in a new report. He defended the magazine's handling of the story.
"Everybody did what they were supposed to do," he said.