Newsweek on Monday retracted an article that said the U.S. military had confirmed that an interrogator at the Guantanamo Bay prison flushed a copy of the Koran down the toilet -- a report blamed for helping to trigger rioting in Afghanistan that killed at least 14 people.
Editor Mark Whitaker took the action following sharp criticism from top Bush administration officials, who said earlier in the day that the news magazine's "irresponsible" actions had contributed to the violence in a nation where the U.S. was helping to manage a fragile new government.
"Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay," Whitaker's statement said. He did not elaborate or respond to phone calls.
Newsweek on Sunday had published a follow-up article and acknowledged mistakes in its May 9 report, which described how interrogators reportedly intimidated Muslim prisoners, desecrated the Koran and, in another instance, led a detainee around with a collar and dog leash.
But the magazine had declined over the weekend to take the more definitive step of retracting the article about the prison at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, where detainees from Iraq and Afghanistan are held and questioned about terrorism and other threats.
That led to a second wave of criticism from the administration Monday.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman denied the substance of Newsweek's original report, calling the article "irresponsible" and "demonstrably false."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the article had "had serious consequences. People have lost their lives. The image of the United States abroad has been damaged."
Making note of the rioting and deaths, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the news media needed to be more careful.
"I think it was Mark Twain who said that something that's not true can speed around the world three or four times in a matter of seconds
It appeared unlikely that the complaints, or the retraction, would settle the matter.
Prisoner advocates and the media have been reporting for more than two years about the alleged abuse of prisoners. A new book by a former translator at the prison renews the accusations, including an account of how one female interrogator allegedly wiped her red-stained hands on a prisoner and told him it was her menstrual blood.
