Ethics Newsline®

WASHINGTON
Newsweek magazine last week retracted a controversial story alleging abuse of the Koran by U.S. interrogators, saying their source could no longer confirm the story, leaving the magazine no choice but to backtrack.

The allegations first appeared in the magazine’s May 9 issue, which said that an upcoming military report was expected to charge that interrogators had flushed a Koran down a toilet to unnerve tight-lipped detainees.

The 10-sentence news blurb spread quickly in the Muslim world, fueling anger at U.S. forces already distrusted in the wake of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, reported the Associated Press.

Some sources blamed the Newsweek story for anti-U.S. rallies that erupted in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where more than 16 people were killed when protests turned violent. Others, including the senior commander in Afghanistan, blamed the protests on national politics, noted the New York Times.

Newsweek said that the story’s source — a “senior government official” who had been reliable in the past — told the magazine that a forthcoming report would document abuse of the Koran by military interrogators at Guantánamo Bay.

As Newsweek came under increasing fire for the story, the source backtracked, eventually saying he may have read about the charges somewhere other than in the expected report.

That lack of clarity required Newsweek to retract the story, said editor Mark Whitaker, who rejected charges that the magazine had used slack standards when publishing the material.

Whitaker noted that the original story had been read by two Defense Department officials, neither of whom challenged the allegations involving the Koran.

“There had been previous reports about the Koran being defiled, but they always seemed to be rumors or allegations made by sources without evidence,” Whitaker said. “The fact that a knowledgeable source within the U.S. government was telling us the government itself had knowledge of this was newsworthy.”

“We relied on sources we had every reason to trust and gave the Pentagon ample opportunity to comment,” Whitaker told the Washington Post.

The Pentagon said an internal investigation of the charges has found no evidence that U.S. interrogators have desecrated the Koran.