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Koran abuse has U.S. on defensive

Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan says some in the media have taken the Koran issue out of context.

CRAWFORD, Texas - A Pentagon report detailing incidents in which U.S. guards at Guantanamo Bay prison desecrated the Koran is creating another public relations challenge for the White House.

Two weeks ago, the administration was thrown on the defensive by a now-retracted Newsweek report alleging that U.S. interrogators at the detention center for alleged terrorists in Cuba had flushed a Koran down a toilet.

The story stirred worldwide controversy, and administration officials blamed it for deadly demonstrations in Afghanistan. Saying America's image abroad had suffered irreparable damage, the White House responded with a verbal offensive against the media.

On Saturday, a day after the Pentagon described a series of cases of U.S. personnel mishandling the Koran, the White House downplayed the issue.

"It is unfortunate that some have chosen to take out of context a few isolated incidents by a few individuals," presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said in a statement.

Joe Lockhart, former press secretary for President Bill Clinton, said that when a news organization such as Newsweek makes a factual mistake, White House officials are tempted to try to discredit the entire story.

"I think on this issue, they fell into a trap," Lockhart said. "They saw a way to push back on a damaging story by making it look like it was just out-of-control journalists, and now they've had to admit that it has happened."

McClellan's statements after the Newsweek report left an impression that no desecration at all had occurred at Guantanamo, Lockhart said.

"While the news organization got an example wrong, they got the practice right," he said.

The Pentagon confirmed Friday that a U.S. soldier had deliberately kicked a prisoner's Koran. The report also said prison guards had thrown water balloons in a cell block, causing an unspecified number of Korans to get wet; a guard's urine had splashed on a detainee and his Koran; an interrogator had stepped on a Koran during an interrogation; and a two-word obscenity had been written in English on the inside cover of a Koran.

Pentagon officials said the problems were relatively minor and U.S. commanders have gone to great lengths to allow detainees to practice their religion.

The investigation last month, by Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, the commander of the detention center, also found 15 cases of detainees mishandling their own Korans, White House officials pointed out.

"These included using a Quran as a pillow, ripping pages out of the Quran, attempting to flush a Quran down the toilet and urinating on the Quran," Hood's report said. The report did not explain the detainees' actions.

On her goodwill trip to the Middle East last month, first lady Laura Bush said Newsweek should not be solely blamed for the deadly protests that followed its report.

"In the United States if there's a terrible report, people don't riot and kill other people," she said.

"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."

[Last modified June 5, 2005, 02:15:25]