Newsweek Retracts Quran Story

Article Alleged Guantanamo Interrogators Desecrated Holy Book

(CBS/AP)  Newsweek Washington Bureau Chief Daniel Klaidman said the magazine believes it erred in reporting the allegation that a prison guard tried to flush the Quran down a toilet and that military investigators had confirmed the accusation.

"The issue here is to get the truth out, to acknowledge as quickly as possible what happened, and that's what we're trying to do," Klaidman told the CBS Evening News on Sunday.

Many of the 520 inmates at Guantanamo are Muslims arrested during the U.S.-led war against the Taliban and its al Qaeda allies in Afghanistan.

In a statement, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the original story was "demonstrably false" and "irresponsible," and "had significant consequences that reverberated throughout Muslim communities around the world."

"Newsweek hid behind anonymous sources, which by their own admission do not withstand scrutiny," Whitman said. "Unfortunately, they cannot retract the damage they have done to this nation or those that were viciously attacked by those false allegations."

After Newsweek published the story, demonstrations spread across Afghanistan and Muslims around the world decried the alleged desecration.

The rage that swept through Afghanistan and much of the Muslim world lasted almost a week. the fires are out now but the anger's still burning. The issue's touched a nerve, and clerics in Afghanistan are calling for the protest to continue, reports CBS News Correspondent Richard Roth.

Roth spoke with U.S. Military spokesman Col. James Yonts, who defended the military attitude toward foreign belief systems.

"Any disrespect to the Quran and any other religion is not tolerated by our culture and our values," Yonts said. "That goes against our beliefs and we do not tolerate that."

"The denial of Quran not being desecrated by the administration wouldn't actually go very well among the Muslim people simply because Muslim worlds lost trust in the American administration,'' said Abd Al-Bari Atwan, editor of the Al Quds newspaper.

In Afghanistan, Islamic scholars and tribal elders called for the punishment of anyone found to have abused the Quran, said Maulawi Abdul Wali Arshad, head of the religious affairs department in Badakhshan province.

Arshad and the provincial police chief said the scholars met in Faizabad, 310 miles northeast of the capital, Kabul, and demanded a "reaction" from U.S. authorities within three days.

Lebanon's most senior Shiite Muslim cleric on Sunday said the reported desecration of the Quran is part of an American campaign aimed at disrespecting and smearing Islam.

In a statement faxed to The Associated Press, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah called the alleged desecration a "brutal" form of torture and urged Muslims and international human rights organizations "to raise their voices loudly against the American behavior."

On Saturday, Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, both allies of Washington, demanded an investigation and punishment for those behind the reported desecration of the Quran.

The story also sparked protests in Pakistan, Yemen and the Gaza Strip. The 22-nation Arab League issued a statement saying if the allegations panned out, Washington should apologize to Muslims.

Newsweek is owned by The Washington Post Co.