Outspoken Mrs. Bush In Jordan

First Lady Challenges White House Line On Newsweek Report

(CBS/AP)  Asked about her comment, presidential spokesman Trent Duffy said, "I think the president and the first lady have both said they have full confidence in the Secret Service. He feels that the protocols were followed, he is confident that they were. I don't think that I have anything further."

Mrs. Bush said she hoped her trip would help improve the U.S. image in the Arab world after the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal and the now-retracted Newsweek report that American interrogators desecrated the Quran, the Muslim holy book.

Newsweek at first apologized for its story and then retracted it under heavy pressure from the administration. The White House blamed the magazine's account for triggering anti-American protests in Afghanistan in which police fired on demonstrators and killed about 15 people.

Mrs. Bush said Newsweek can't be held solely responsible for the rioters' violence — her second departure from the White House line – even though she considered the report irresponsible.

"In the United States if there's a terrible report, people don't riot and kill other people," she said. "And you can't excuse what they did because of the mistake — you know, you can't blame it all on Newsweek."

Mrs. Bush said the Newsweek report compounded anti-American sentiment stemming from the abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib. She said that abuse was "not any sort of typical thing from the United States."

"We've had terrible happenings that have really, really hurt our image of the United States," she said. "And people in the United States are sick about it."

The first lady said she wants people in the Arab world to know that America is tolerant of people from all religions and that people of all faiths participate in the democracy. She said she will highlight U.S. funding for projects that support childhood education and opportunities for women in the region.

A later stop in Egypt will take her to one place in the region that is struggling to open its democracy. Egypt is allowing multicandidate presidential elections for the first time, though opposition groups say President Hosni Mubarak's ruling party has a say over which independent candidates can run.

Mrs. Bush clearly wanted to avoid commenting on that controversy on her goodwill tour and just repeated her husband's past statements.

"I can only tell you what the president said, which is that it's very important for these to be free elections, for the world to see that they are free elections," she said.