Red Cross told U.S. of Koran incidents

[sabra]

<<SNIP>>
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0505190306may19,1,278199.story?coll=chi-news-hed

http://www.bugmenot.com/view.php?url=www.chicagotribune.com

Red Cross told U.S. of Koran incidents

By Cam Simpson and Mark Silva
Washington Bureau
Published May 19, 2005


WASHINGTON -- The International Committee of the Red Cross documented what it called credible information about U.S. personnel disrespecting or mishandling Korans at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and pointed it out to the Pentagon in confidential reports during 2002 and early 2003, an ICRC spokesman said Wednesday.

Representatives of the ICRC, who have played a key role in investigating abuse allegations at the facility in Cuba and other U.S. military prisons, never witnessed such incidents firsthand during on-site visits, said Simon Schorno, an ICRC spokesman in Washington.

But ICRC delegates, who have been granted access to the secretive camp since January 2002, gathered and corroborated enough similar, independent reports from detainees to raise the issue multiple times with Guantanamo commanders and with Pentagon officials, Schorno said in an interview Wednesday.

....

In addition to the retracted Newsweek story, senior Bush administration officials have repeatedly downplayed other reports regarding alleged abuses of the Koran at Guantanamo, largely dismissing them because they came from current or former detainees.

<</SNIP>>

[bushisanidiot]

1. Time for AWOL Bush and his lemmings to declare the Red Cross a terrorist

organization..

idiots.

[liberal N proud]

38. They already disregard the Red Cross

They move prisoners around as the Red Cross is about to visit so they don't show up on their reports.

[endarkenment]

2. newsweek wimped out

Nobody is challenging the fascist's assertion that first person witnesses to these incidents are not believable because the witnesses were prisoners.

Who the heck else is going to go public?

Oh and the muslim chaplin who was railroaded out of gitmo also went on the record regarding koran desecration. His ordeal is starting to make a lot more sense.

The fascist's meme is that the only credible witnesses regarding what goes on in our torture centers are the officials and guards doing the torture. Anybody in the MSM have a problem with that? I thought not.

[sabra]

3. I truly hope Newsweek has something up their sleeves....

[rodeodance]

4. and don't forget that DiRita said they have not investigated

[rodeodance]

5. would be grand if they DID!!--i can not stand little Scotty

rubbing it in as he has done.

[Roland99]

7. I can't wait to see Scotty McLiellan get taken down!!

[sabra]

10. Olberman had a great blog the other day stating that Scotty

should resign! I hope he read it...

[Roland99]

13. Oh yeah...that was a great one!

I put the ownage of Scotty re: Newsweek up on my blog, too.

[sabra]

15. cool, and nice blog btw... n/t

[Roland99]

16. Thanks!

[tom_paine]

32. Newsweek has NOTHING up their sleeves

except the groveling cowardice of a weak and slavish people.

[jobycom]

14. Newsweek only retracted the claim that a government investigation

found proof of the Qur'an being flushed, because their witness recanted his story, and they learned that the government investigation they were reporting did NOT even look at the Qur'an issue. Newsweek also stated that there were many reports of soldiers desecrating the Qur'an.

Newsweek didn't wimp out, the rest of the media betrayed them by letting Bush spin his yarn rather than sticking up for their profession by hammering home the distinction.

This is directly from their "retraction:"
"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."

"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."

"Editor's Note: On Monday afternoon, May 16, Whitaker issued the following statement: Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Qur'an abuse at Guantanamo Bay."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7857154/site/newsweek/

[endarkenment]

19. They wimped out.

Once again we have evidence of a pattern of behavior by this administration to either supress 'sources' or deliberately plant bad information, as we saw in the rather case. Once again the administration appears to create these 'episodes' at fortuitous moments: when the investigation of the bush military record was starting to pay off, when the blair memo finally brings weight to the obvious conclusion that the fascists cooked the intelligence in their push for aggresion against Iraq.

What does newsweek do when they are the latest victim? Newsweek wimps out, rolls over, begs for forgiveness. The MSM is once again revealed as the submissive partner in the screwing of america.

[jobycom]

23. Read the damn link

Newsweek didn't role over. They admitted that the information they printed was wrong. It was. What were they going to do, go Bush and claim it was right even though it was disproven? They stuck by the facts of their story, but apologized--barely--for the wrong information.

Read their explanation more closely. I wish the rest of the media would wimp out like that--because their "wimping out" looks a lot more like fighting than most of what I've seen in a while.

[endarkenment]

24. I'm sorry but I read the link.

The information they provided wasn't wrong, their source backed out. I'm wondering if you read your own link.

Fighting would have been sticking to their story, noting that their 'unnamed source' was changing his, most likely due to pressure from the administration, noting that there were numerous other independent collaborative reports, including eye witness statements from former prisoners, statements from the red cross, and it seems from the muslim chaplin who almost got fried over bogus accusations against him, and calling out the administration for its efforts to suppress and sandbag any MSM source that appears to be even remotely independent.

Instead they rolled over and begged for mercy.

Take them rose colored glasses off.

[Frederik]

27. The information wasn't wrong

Their source - a senior military source they had used many times and whose information hadn't been contested by the military before - suddenly changed his mind. That was after another Pentagon source had been handed the article and not objected to it.

Stories about Korans flushed down the toilet have been common since early 2003.

[jobycom]

30. You both still missed the crucial part of the retraction

They article that was retracted wasn't about the Qur'an desecration, it was about a government report. The government report claimed that several Qur'ans had been accidentally mistreated, and it claimed that one prisoner, despondent over his treatment, tried to stop up a toilet by tearing pages out of the Qur'an and stuffing the pipes.

Newsweek was told this by the Pentagon after they published the story. They then went back to their source and said "You said this, the Pentagon says that, will you stand by your story?" He said no. Which means they had no evidence to back up their story.

So they retracted the claim that the GOVERNMENT REPORT found evidence of official Qur'an desecration by the US as a means of torture, but Newsweek maintained, and still maintains, that stories of such Qur'an desecration as a means of torture has been widespread amongst prisoners and released prisoners for years.

I don't see them rolling over at all. They simply said they could no longer confirm there original story about the government report's findings, but that the desecrations still happened.

Now, the story still may have been right even about the government's investigation--the story of the Muslim tearing up his Qur'an to stop up a toilet rings false on a dozen levels--but Newsweek has no one to prove their story. No witness, no testimony, nothing except evidence to the contrary.

[Solly Mack]

6. Bush Inc are bullying Newsweek because they can

The world knows Bush is lying.The American government, on the other hand, isn't exactly "the world"....it's rocking to it's own reality.
A reality that is harming more than just Americans.

[chelsea0011]

8. I always knew in the back of my mind that the Red Cross were the culprits

[Coexist]

12. why do they hate America?!

[dalloway]

9. ATTENTION NEWSWEEK EDITORS/JOURNALISTS:

Next week, please publish THIS story, with full quotes and attributed sources to the Red Cross (and why not the dozen plus other sources that have been documented elsewhere)

Write the story, attribute the sources and call this administration to task for its attempt to scapegoat Newsweek for its own disastrous policies.

Do this, and I will subscribe to Newsweek. After all, I just canceled my 15 year subscription to TIME after they ran Ann Coulter on the cover. Show me some backbone, and you'll have not only my support, you'll have my dollars.

Will somebody please report the truth? Will somebody please report the news?????

[LynnTheDem]

11. ICRC RESPONSIBLE FOR DEATHS IN AFGHANISTAN!!!

RETRACT OR DIE, ICRC!!!

*Yes we must'nt believe released Gitmo detainees who were released because they were innocent of any wrong-doing; after all what the fuck would THEY know about what went down in Gitmo.

:sarcasm:

[Betsy Ross]

17. Isn't this one dead yet?

I guess bushco is milking this one for all it is worth. Gotta have something to take people's mind off the MEMO and the Oil-for-Food scandal.

Next real crisis, any day now, and we'll get a new scapegoat story.

[demo dutch]

18. Glad to see that some media is printing stories to counter this nonsense!

You can count of them coming to the rescue to protect one of their own
Now, if they would only counter the rest of the nonsense that's going on inside this administration.

[Nothing Without Hope]

20. And now the Chic Trib will be attacked for not supporting Merkins.

I continue to wonder whether the Newsweek deal was a setup from the first - the reporter was Isikoff, a trusted darling and hero to the GOP. (He was one of the main people helping along the impeachment of Clinton.) Could he have deliberately chosen a "questionable" source out of so many solid ones?

The Newsweek blowup was seized by the neocons as (1) a way to discredit the press in general and possibly get some more control over it, and (2) a way to Ratherize the issue of prisoner abuse in general and Quran defilement in particular. Could they have made it very worth his while and set it up? Don't know, but I do wonder.

I swear, I never used to wear so much tin foil. :tinfoilhat:

[NJmaverick]

21. What are the odds this will get the media play

bush's successful cover up of the incident did???

[Callboy]

22. what was that band?

koran, koran?

[ClintonTyree]

25. Of course it's true....

anyone with a dual helix (that would NOT include Republicans)in their DNA can figure out that this DID happen. For the White House to deny it and lay blame on Newsweek or anyone else is the most sickening act of cowardice and blame shifting, ever.

America HAS to wake up from it's BushCo. terror induced coma and demand that this present administration be held accountable. :grr:

[old blue]

26. NPR is carrying this story.

I'm listening to it right now.

[ClintonTyree]

28. Better catch it now....

soon NPR will be controlled by the neo-con propaganda machine as well. There won't be anyplace to find the truth except the "internets", and I'm sure they're working on that as I type.

[nittygritty]

29. Contact Chicago Tribune

and thank them for this story.

Contact page:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/placead/chi-contactus,0,3098881.htmlstory

[Festivito]

31. Isn't t;his a red fish? The riot was NOT ABOUT Koran misuse.

The apology request is toothless.
The riot was about political wrangling, not Newsweek.
There is no need to retract, rewrite, water-down, that article.
(Abusing the Koran is more harmful than its abuse is useful .. so quit abusing it.)

Should our president apologise? There are a lot of things he should do to be a man. Please, no one hold their breath.

This whole rukus focuses on whether or not the Koran was abused in order take focus from the Downing Street memo while adding incredulity creating confusion to the media, so if the media does write about the memo people will read skeptically about the memo when they should have been skeptical about most everything else.

[BigBearJohn]

33. Red Cross told U.S. of Koran incidents

WASHINGTON -- The International Committee of the Red Cross documented what it called credible information about U.S. personnel disrespecting or mishandling Korans at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and pointed it out to the Pentagon in confidential reports during 2002 and early 2003, an ICRC spokesman said Wednesday.

Representatives of the ICRC, who have played a key role in investigating abuse allegations at the facility in Cuba and other U.S. military prisons, never witnessed such incidents firsthand during on-site visits, said Simon Schorno, an ICRC spokesman in Washington.

But ICRC delegates, who have been granted access to the secretive camp since January 2002, gathered and corroborated enough similar, independent reports from detainees to raise the issue multiple times with Guantanamo commanders and with Pentagon officials, Schorno said in an interview Wednesday.

Following the ICRC's reports, the Defense Department command in Guantanamo issued almost three pages of detailed, written guidelines for treatment of Korans. Schorno said ICRC representatives did not receive any other complaints or document similar incidents following the issuance of the guidelines on Jan. 19, 2003.

More: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0505190306may19,1,278199.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

[bluestateguy]

34. Just watch

This story will be slowly rehabilitated back to credibility, but it will take some time.

[whistle]

35. There you go, the story is true, Newsweek was set-up with false

...trail, the editorial staff of Newsweek shit their pants and caved into the Bushit, then BushCo used them to further their own lies by insisting that Newsweek make restitution by becoming their apologists. What a bunch of crap!

[NVMojo]

36. the media and the US public need to grow a set ...

[sattahipdeep]

37. Sgt. Erik Saar (translator) May 1, 2005

Sgt. Erik Saar, a former Guantanamo
Bay translator, says that prisoner
interrogations were staged for visiting
VIPs.

....
(CBS) The story that Sgt. Erik Saar, a
soldier who spent three months in the
interrogation rooms at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, tells Correspondent Scott Pelley
paints a picture of bizarre, even sadistic,
treatment of detainees in the American
prison camp.

....
60 Minutes also reveals previously secret
emails from FBI agents at Guantanamo
that warn FBI headquarters that prisoners
are being tortured.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/28/60minutes/main691602.shtml

In an interview with Amy Goodman...

A technique was used in the interrogation booth
where sex was used as a weapon to create a wedge
between the detainee we were speaking with and his
faith. For example, more specifically, the female
interrogator I worked with that day sought to
sexually entice the detainee. The logic behind that
was that if he would be sexually attracted to her, he
would feel unclean, and therefore, she believed, in
Islam, he would be unable to go back to his cell and
pray. One thing she additionally did in order to
humiliate him and also to make him feel unclean was
wipe what was red ink on his face, but it was done in
a way that he believed it was menstrual blood. All of
this again was in an attempt to create this wedge
between himself and his religion . . . .

If U.S. interrogation practices went this far, what's the likelihood of a
single copy of the Qur'an being flushed down a toilet?

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/May05/Williamson0517.htm

[BigBearJohn]

39. LOVE IT! I think that THIS just about sums it up for me. Take a look:

[paineinthearse]

40. Remember this article when the rethugs attempt to pass a House resolution

condemning Newsweek.

[stickdog]

41. Look, it's Saddam in his underpants!

{corporate media via transparent BushCo manipulation}

The Red Cross thinks that's a possible Geneva Convention violation. So obviously they're ridiculous bleeding hearts and the Geneva Convention is a joke!

{/corporate media via transparent BushCo manipulation}