Newsweek Retracts Story on Qu’ran Desecration

May 16, 2005

Source: Beliefnet

Wire Service: AP

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/166/story_16670_1.html

On May 16, 2005 the Associated Press reported, "Newsweek magazine, under fire for publishing a story that led to deadly protests in Afghanistan, said Monday it was retracting its report that a military probe had found evidence of desecration of the Quran by U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay. Earlier Monday, Bush administration officials had brushed off an apology that Newsweek's editor Mark Whitaker had made in an editor's note and criticized the magazine's handling of the story. 'It's appalling that this story got out there,' Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said as she traveled home from Iraq. 'People lost their lives. People are dead,' Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. 'People need to be very careful about what they say, just as they need to be careful about what they do.' Following the criticism, Whitaker released a statement through a spokesman later Monday saying the magazine was retracting the article. 'Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Quran abuse at Guantanamo Bay,' Whitaker said."