White House says Newsweek report damaged U.S. image

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...N-KORAN-DC.XML

(Gold9472: Hello pot, this is kettle...)

Mon May 16, 2005 3:48 PM ET
By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Monday an inaccurate Newsweek report based on an anonymous source had damaged the U.S. image overseas by claiming U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay.

At the same time, the Pentagon said an investigation remained open into allegations contained in Newsweek's May 9 report that triggered several days of rioting in Afghanistan and other countries in which at least 16 people were killed.

Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker apologized to the victims on Sunday and said the magazine inaccurately reported that U.S. military investigators had confirmed personnel at the detention facility in Cuba had flushed the Muslim holy book down the toilet.

"It's puzzling that while Newsweek now acknowledges that they got the facts wrong, they refused to retract the story," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "I think there's a certain journalistic standard that should be met and in this instance it was not."

"The report has had serious consequences," McClellan said. "People have lost their lives. The image of the United States abroad has been damaged."

"It has certainly caused damage to the credibility of the media as well, and Newsweek itself," he added later.

The U.S. image had already been tarnished in many parts of the Arab world, and Washington has labored to rebuild trust among Muslims following last year's disclosures that U.S. guards at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison physically and sexually abused Iraqi prisoners.

The report sparked violent protests across the Muslim world -- from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan, Indonesia and Gaza. In the past week the reported desecration was condemned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and by the Arab League.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, returning from a trip to Iraq, said, "I do think it's done a lot of harm."

Muslims in Afghanistan were skeptical about the turnaround on Monday.

"We will not be deceived by this," Islamic cleric Mullah Sadullah Abu Aman told Reuters. "It comes because of American pressure." Aman was the leader of a group of clerics who vowed to call for a holy war against the United States. Continued ...

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