New York – Newsweek magazine, under fire for publishing a story that led to deadly protests in Afghanistan, said Monday that it was retracting its report that a military probe had found evidence of desecration of the Koran by U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay.
Earlier Monday, Bush administration officials had brushed off an apology that Newsweek’s editor, Mark Whitaker, had made in an editor’s note and criticized the magazine’s handling of the story.
Protests broke out across much of the Muslim world last week after Newsweek reported that U.S. investigators found evidence that interrogators had flushed a copy of Muslims’ holy book down a toilet in an attempt to rattle detainees. The violence left about 15 dead and scores injured in Afghanistan.
“It’s appalling that this story got out there,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said as she traveled home from Iraq.
“People lost their lives. People are dead,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Capitol Hill. “People need to be very careful about what they say, just as they need to be careful about what they do.”
Following the criticism, Whitaker released a statement later Monday saying the magazine was retracting the article.
“Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay,” he said.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the Pentagon had looked into the allegations initially and found nothing to substantiate them.
“They continue to look into it,” he said.
Newsweek reported in its issue dated May 9 that U.S. military investigators had found evidence that interrogators placed copies of Islam’s holy book in washrooms and had flushed one down the toilet to get inmates to talk.
Whitaker had written in a note to readers that “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 said in his note that while other news organizations had aired charges of Koran abuse based on the testimony of detainees, the magazine decided to publish a short item after hearing from an unnamed U.S. official that a government probe had found evidence corroborating the charges.
Whitaker added that the magazine’s original source later said he could not be sure he read about the alleged Koran incident in the report Newsweek cited, and that it might have been in another document. Whitaker said the magazine was still looking into the charges.
