16 deaths in Afghanistan later, Newsweek says it was wrong about the Quran (Koran) being flushed down Guantanamo toilet

Newsweek now admits it got the facts wrong on the report of U.S. interrogators throwing a Quran down a toilet at the Guantanamo prison.

The May 9 Newsweek had said U.S. Southern Command investigators "found" the incident had happened. Since then, Muslim rioting and clashes with riot police have killed 16 people in Afghanistan alone.

Newsweek was wrong. There’s a good chance the interrogators never flushed a Quran. But in explaining its deadly error today, Newsweek says others had published similar stories:

Newsweek was not the first to report allegations of desecrating the Qur'an. As early as last spring and summer, similar reports from released detainees started surfacing in British and Russian news reports, and in the Arab news agency Al-Jazeera; claims by other released detainees have been covered in other media since then.

Those reliable journalists of Britain (who, the anti-liberation Guardian?), Russia and Al-Jazeera? Oh, come on, Newsweek, you’ve sunk to Al-Jazeera’s standards now? Face it, Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff’s "longtime reliable source" had no idea what he was talking about, Isikoff thought he had a tasty morsel for his readers, and the rest is murder.

On Saturday (May 14), Isikoff spoke to his original source, the senior government official, who said that he clearly recalled reading investigative reports about mishandling the Qur'an, including a toilet incident. But the official, still speaking anonymously, could no longer be sure that these concerns had surfaced in the SouthCom report. Told of what the Newsweek source said, [Pentagon spokesman Lawrence] DiRita exploded, "People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said. How could he be credible now?"

A detainee’s desecration. Oddly enough, the only documented report of Quran desecration at Guantanamo is one of a detainee stuffing pages of the Quran in the toilet as a protest.

Now, will the hothead "religious leaders" in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza and Indonesia apologize? Sixteen dead over one line in a magazine?

This episode is a lot like the Turkish car bomber who killed himself and 12 others on Nov. 20, 2003, blowing up the British HSBC bank in Istanbul because he read a rumor Americans were raping thousands of Iraqi women. Twelve innocent people died. Later, the Turkish Islamic journal that printed the rumor admitted the story had no foundation.

The dead were not amused.

Frank Warner

Comments

[Carl]

Afghan clerics threaten Muslim holy war over Koran
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-05-15T102149Z_01_N15171346_RTRIDST_0_INTERNATIONAL-RELIGION-AFGHAN-DC.XML

[Carl]

Aljazeera.Net - Magazine casts doubt on Quran report
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/99ADD4E8-9FA0-46F6-83E9-0737BE957A91.htm

[Neo]

The idea of determining the effect on the war effort is now passe, for some.

Years ago, when the country when to war, the country when to war. It was everybodies war, so, if you believed in it or not, you found a way to help end it.

Somewhere around the time of the first Gulf War, the notion sprang up with fervor that it was no possible to "opt out" of a war. It was "Bush's War" not mine. I saw this again when the WTC was struck .. the war of terrorism is not "my war" came from places like NPR and was not challenged.

Once you "opt out," it is pretty darn easy to think that whatever you do is done as a "neutral." Just after 9/11, Rather and Jennings in a panel discussion on journals "embedding" with the enemy said that they would cover the story of the enemy attacking US forces before trying to warn them of an impending attack. That position is easy to take when your a "neutral."

Newsweek has taken their "oath to neutrality" while blindly tossing about "anonymously sourced" accusations with no need to worry about the "war effort" because it is simply "not their war." It stands to reason.

But "opting out" is not a choice. The underlining premise that you can "opt out" of a war is most obvious fallacious when you consider that there were some 3000 folks would probably have liked to "opt out" on the "war on terror" on the morning of 9/11/01, but were not given that choice.

[Heiko Gerhauser]

Just to answer your question on how Tim Lambert came up with 11 deaths.

An email by the authors clarified the make-up of the 21 violent deaths:
6 coalition bombings (3 incidents, 1 with 3 deaths, 1 with 2 deaths, and 1 with 1 death)
3 shootings (separate incidents)
2 anti-coalition
2 unknown
1 former regime during the invasion
7 crime

Tim's added together the 9 coalition induced fatalities and the 2 insurgent caused deaths (all ex Fallujah).

[Carl]

White House says Newsweek report damaged U.S. image
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-05-16T194913Z_01_N16472689_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-RELIGION-KORAN-DC.XML

[Carl]

Newsweek Retracts Story on Quran Abuse
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=762543

[George]

Who asked anything about Tim Labert and 11 deaths? Oddly, I was just about to ask such a question. I don't know if that answer applies or not.

Who are these 16 or so people who were killed? Were they Americans? Were they people who work with Americans? Were they innocent Afghanis? Just whom are they killing?

[Frank Warner]

Tim Lambert is referring to deaths in the invasion and liberation of Iraq. A new study for the U.N. finds the first 13 months of fighting caused 24,000 deaths.

I was asking questions on Lambert's blog about the earlier Johns Hopkins (Lancet) study, and since I have not posted anything on it yet, this kind person answered me here.

I'm just trying to clarify the numbers.

[jj mollo]

Tim Lambert comments are very interesting at

http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/

I posted myself about the original Johns Hopkins 100,000 figure last month on my blog (at excruciating length) if anyone's interested in a contrasting viewpoint.

http://journals.aol.com/jjmollo/SoundoftheMushroom/entries/343
http://journals.aol.com/jjmollo/SoundoftheMushroom/entries/342

[Carl]

Pakistan dismisses Newsweek retraction on Koran
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8515587&src=eDialog/GetContent

[Carl]

I agree with the thoughts on how some in the press try to pass themselves off as "neutral" on the events happening in the world even though they should be weighing their words because they really do own a piece of the pie in the free world.

By ignoring the realities of what happens in the non-free world, they threaten the freedom that they have to speak their minds.

But, they need to be careful to speak something with some basis rather than trying to scoop other media sources with dangerous single source drivel.

[Red Star]

Just who is the 'son of a bitch'?
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - Here's a question for international news hounds: Who is the "son of a bitch" referred to in this comment by a US Defense Department spokesman?

"People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said. How could he be credible now?"

Is he an unnamed Defense Department source who told Newsweek magazine that he had read a government document detailing an incident where US military personnel at the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, allegedly flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet?

After all, that report, which was printed in a small item in last week's "Periscope" section of the magazine, spurred violent protests across the Muslim world, particularly in Afghanistan, where at least 15 people were killed and the government of President Hamid Karzai was badly shaken just a week before he was due to travel to Washington.

Or is the "son of a bitch" US President George W Bush, whose administration began fixing intelligence at least eight months before invading Iraq in order to make the public believe that Baghdad posed a serious threat to the United States and its allies?

After all, the war and its bloody aftermath have taken a toll of at least 30,000 lives, according to the most conservative estimates, and ongoing conflict continues to kill scores more every week with no end in sight.

Readers of the British press might be inclined to choose the second option based on the sensational leak to the London Times two weeks ago of the minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and his closest advisers during which the head of the intelligence agency MI6, just back from Washington, reported that Bush had decided on war and that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy".