Posted on 05/15/2005 12:19:09 PM PDT by hipaatwo
Yesterday's London Times reports on the rioting and deaths triggered by Michael Isikoff's Periscope item in Newsweek on alleged abuse of the Koran at Guantanomo: "Newsweek sparks global riots with one paragraph on Koran." The new issue of Newsweek carries an account by assistant managing editor Evan Thomas on Isikoff's Periscope item: "How a fire broke out." Thomas appears to concede that Isikoff erred and explains how. Thomas writes:
Late last week Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita told NEWSWEEK that its original story was wrong. The brief periscope item ("SouthCom Showdown") had reported on the expected results of an upcoming U.S. Southern Command investigation into the abuse of prisoners at Gitmo. According to NEWSWEEK, SouthCom investigators found that Gitmo interrogators had flushed a Qur'an down a toilet in an attempt to rattle detainees. While various released detainees have made allegations about Qur'an desecration, the Pentagon has, according to DiRita, found no credible evidence to support them.
How did NEWSWEEK get its facts wrong? And how did the story feed into serious international unrest? While continuing to report events on the ground, NEWSWEEK interviewed government officials, diplomats and its own staffers, and reconstructed this narrative of events:
At NEWSWEEK, veteran investigative reporter Michael Isikoff's interest had been sparked by the release late last year of some internal FBI e-mails that painted a stark picture of prisoner abuse at Guantánamo. Isikoff knew that military investigators at Southern Command (which runs the Guantánamo prison) were looking into the allegations. So he called a longtime reliable source, a senior U.S. government official who was knowledgeable about the matter. The source told Isikoff that the report would include new details that were not in the FBI e-mails, including mention of flushing the Qur'an down a toilet. A SouthCom spokesman contacted by Isikoff declined to comment on an ongoing investigation, but news-week National Security Correspondent John Barry, realizing the sensitivity of the story, provided a draft of the NEWSWEEK periscope item to a senior Defense official, asking, "Is this accurate or not?" The official challenged one aspect of the story: the suggestion that Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, sent to Gitmo by the Pentagon in 2001 to oversee prisoner interrogation, might be held accountable for the abuses. Not true, said the official (the periscope draft was corrected to reflect that). But he was silent about the rest of the item. The official had not meant to mislead, but lacked detailed knowledge of the SouthCom report. So Isikoff relied on a telephone call with an anonymous government official paraphrasing a forthcoming report, confirmed by placing a draft of the Periscope item before another anonymous government official. Isikoff never saw the underlying report or even had it read to him. Thomas also writes:
After the rioting began last week, the Pentagon attempted to determine the veracity of the NEWSWEEK story. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers told reporters that so far no allegations had been proven. He did appear to cryptically refer to two mentions found in the logs of prison guards in Gitmo: a report that a detainee had used pages of the Qur'an to stop up a crude toilet as a form of protest, and a complaint from a detainee that a prison guard had knocked down a Qur'an hanging in a bag in his cell.
On Friday night, Pentagon spokesman DiRita called NEWSWEEK to complain about the original periscope item. He said, "We pursue all credible allegations" of prisoner abuse, but insisted that the investigators had found none involving Qur'an desecration. DiRita sent NEWSWEEK a copy of rules issued to the guards (after the incidents mentioned by General Myers) to guarantee respect for Islamic worship. On Saturday, 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, DiRita exploded, "People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said. How could he be credible now?" Thomas doesn't offer any answer to DiRita's question. What does Isikoff have to say? How about another call to Isikoff's anonymous source for comment? Isn't that the least we could expect? But Thomas launches into an even more untrustworthy allegation collected by Isikoff:
In the meantime, as part of his ongoing reporting on the detainee-abuse story, Isikoff had contacted a New York defense lawyer, Marc Falkoff, who is representing 13 Yemeni detainees at Guantánamo. According to Falkoff's declassified notes, a mass-suicide attempt—when 23 detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves in August 2003—was triggered by a guard's dropping a Qur'an and stomping on it. One of Falkoff's clients told him, "Another detainee tried to kill himself after the guard took his Qur'an and threw it in the toilet." A U.S. military spokesman, Army Col. Brad Blackner, dismissed the claims as unbelievable. "If you read the Al Qaeda training manual, they are trained to make allegations against the infidels," he said.What is this doing in an article devoted to Isikoff's original Periscope item asking "How did NEWSWEEK did get its facts wrong?" Thomas appears to be having a hard time concentrating; his attention appears to be wandering. He winds up:
More allegations, credible or not, are sure to come. Bader Zaman Bader, a 35-year-old former editor of a fundamentalist English-language magazine in Peshawar, was released from more than two years' lockup in Guantánamo seven months ago. Arrested by Pakistani security as a suspected Qaeda militant in November 2001, he was handed over to the U.S. military and held at a tent at the Kandahar airfield. One day, Bader claims, as the inmates' latrines were being emptied, a U.S. soldier threw in a Qur'an. After the inmates screamed and protested, a U.S. commander apologized. Bader says he still has nightmares about the incident.
Such stories may spark more trouble... Wow. Bader claims abuse of the Koran during his detention in Kandahar, and Bader says he still has nightmares. He has no motive to fabricate anti-American stories. Thanks for passing on Bader's complaints, Mr. Thomas. I buy them completely. And thanks for the warning regarding such "stories" possibly sparking more trouble. We'll try to keep it in mind as we deal with our own nightmares.
Like Lawrence DiRita, I have a question of my own for NEWSWEEK. Is this how an elite newsmagazine confesses error and corrects the record when it makes a big mess?
UPDATE: Reader Otto Timmons has pointed out Mark Whitaker's editorial note on the subject:
Two weeks ago, in our issue dated May 9, Michael Isikoff and John Barry reported in a brief item in our periscope section that U.S. military investigators had found evidence that American guards at the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had committed infractions in trying to get terror suspects to talk, including in one case flushing a Qur'an down a toilet. Their information came from a knowledgeable U.S. government source, and before deciding whether to publish it we approached two separate Defense Department officials for comment. One declined to give us a response; the other challenged another aspect of the story but did not dispute the Qur'an charge.
Although other major news organizations had aired charges of Qur'an desecration based only on the testimony of detainees, we believed our story was newsworthy because a U.S. official said government investigators turned up this evidence. So we published the item. After several days, newspapers in Pakistan and Afghan-istan began running accounts of our story. At that point, as Evan Thomas, Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai report this week, the riots started and spread across the country, fanned by extremists and unhappiness over the economy.
Last Friday, a top Pentagon spokesman told us that a review of the probe cited in our story showed that it was never meant to look into charges of Qur'an desecration. The spokesman also said the Pentagon had investigated other desecration charges by detainees and found them "not credible." Our original source later said he couldn't be certain about reading of the alleged Qur'an incident in the report we cited, and said it might have been in other investigative documents or drafts. Top administration officials have promised to continue looking into the charges, and so will we. But we regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst. NEWSWEEK regrets it got a part of the story wrong. NEWSWEEK vows to continue looking into the charges. If there's no substance to the charges, they undoubtedly want to break that story. Pathetic.
I know---there are a bunch of stories, but like a poster p
ointed out--the news shows that are supposed to critique the media have ignored it...
I find Evan Thomas' explanation/apology/excuse, which is filled with NEW innuendo of mistreatments, like the so-called evidence that the dems are using against Bolton. They are just throwing out rumors that are repeated on the MSM, and "become" fact---and when one is discounted, they make-up another...
P--good to see you on a thread---means the hubby isn't cracking the whip, today? LOL
Very true. Do you believe, however, that Isikoff & company don't realize the mad-mullahs don't need any pushing? There are degrees of complexity, IMO.
What's the big deal. I use the koran for toilet paper daily.
Wow RonDog, that's gonna keep me busy for days. [THank you]
I was watching Hardball the night that happened, and the ditz Norah O'Donnell was talking to Matthews and actually said something like, "and can you believe the President was RIDING A BICYCLE when the country could have been under attack?"---like he was supposed to be "on guard" for an attack 24/7, 365---
Holy Cow---the media in this country just continue to prove their reputations every day!
Perhaps a salvo of brick-o-grams at Newsweek offices is in order.
Bible abuse .... wonder if that would get headlines, promises, and high powered interest.
Nah, the courts abuse it every day.
I revolted on him. He can cut, haul and burn the rest of it...I quit. LOL
They must be brought up on charges and have their pants sued off as an example of what could happen should any other rag try printing lies as facts. It's time to put an end to those who would try to harm us.
bookmark ping for after supper
In schools around America, the Bible is treated as though it is pornography---actually probably worse, since the ACLU would probably file suit if a school tried to keep the computers from accessing porn websites...
The "Google-bots" LOVE Breaking News threads on FR with lots of links. :o)
Watch for THIS thread to appear on Google -- SOON.
You are exactly right. It was followers of the death cult that did this, not a Newsweek writer.
It may be true that if Newsweek hadn't printed this lie, people wouldn't have rioted. In that sense, Newsweek may share some of the blame, knowing that their words will affect such an odd group of people as ME Islamics.
But it was Islamics who killed people, in the name of their moongod, not Newsweek.
If we blame Newsweek, then it opens the door to blaming America for 911.
""The report sparked angry and violent protests across the Muslim world from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan to Indonesia to Gaza. In the past week it was condemned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Malaysia and by the Arab League. On Sunday, Afghan Muslim clerics threatened to call for a holy war against the United States. "
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1403680/posts
NOW they say, oh, we are sorry!
And how many Muslims will know about the correction? I bet THAT isn't going to spread like wildfire, as the original allegations did.
Well done.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.