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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: steve harris who wrote (682359)	5/15/2005 7:06:57 PM
From: jlallen	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769667

They do not regret it at all, scumbags....

To: steve harris who wrote (682359)	5/16/2005 12:23:23 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 769667

White House questions Newsweek's 'puzzling' stance McClellan wonders why magazine hasn't retracted Quran story Monday, May 16, 2005 Posted: 12:04 PM EDT (1604 GMT) (CNN) -- The White House on Monday expressed puzzlement over why Newsweek has not retracted a story reporting that U.S. investigators had determined American guards at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base had desecrated the Quran. Newsweek published that item in its May 9 issue; in the May 23 issue, it reported that its senior government source had backed away from his initial story. Editor Mark Whitaker wrote in that issue that "we regret" that any part of the story was wrong. (Full story) White House spokesman Scott McClellan said it was "puzzling" that Newsweek had not retracted the story and said the damage done was "serious." "The bottom line is that Newsweek itself admits the story they reported is based on facts that are wrong," McClellan said, repeating the word "puzzling" several times in reference to Newsweek not retracting the story. Violent protests broke out in Afghanistan last week after the magazine cited sources saying investigators looking into abuses at the military prison found interrogators "had placed Qurans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet." At least 15 people were killed and dozens injured when thousands of demonstrators marched in Afghanistan and other parts of the Muslim world in reaction to Newsweek's initial report, officials and eyewitnesses said. Afghani government spokesman Jawed Ludin said his government expresses "in the strongest terms our disapproval of Newsweek's approach to reporting which allowed them to run this story without proper examination beforehand." "Desecrating the Quran is a death-penalty offense" in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, said Peter Bergen, a CNN terrorism analyst. "There is clearly a lot of anti-American sentiment in Pakistan, less so in Afghanistan, but I think that this will feed into it," Bergen said. Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita blamed Newsweek's report for the protests -- which occurred in Jalalabad, Afghanistan; Pakistan and other Muslim countries. "People are dying. They are burning American flags. Our forces are in danger," he told CNN. The U.S. military on Monday said it must reach out to angry Afghans to ease tensions. "We want to redouble our efforts to communicate with the Afghan people," Col. Gary Cheek with the U.S. Army in Kabul said Monday. "We want to ensure there is trust and confidence in the U.S." The Pentagon said last week it was unable to corroborate any case in which interrogators at the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, defiled the Muslim holy book, as Newsweek reported. "Top administration officials have promised to continue looking into the charges, and so will we," Whitaker wrote in the May 23 issue, released Sunday. "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." Despite Newsweek's partial retraction, Cheek promised to re-evaluate U.S. military tactics being used in Afghanistan that have drawn criticism from Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai. "We continually review our tactics and certainly as the sovereignty of the Afghan government grows they will want more control, and that is correct and proper," Cheek said. U.S. forces have been criticized for breaking into homes unannounced and for taking people into custody, sometimes on faulty intelligence. "It does us no good to detain someone and make 100 enemies," according to Cheek. "We want to be very balanced in our operations. You can't do that through heavy-handed tactics." Cheek also said the United States wants to engage Afghan religious leaders "to make sure they understand our true values." Newsweek said anger about the story spread after it was cited at a May 6 press conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, by Imran Khan, a Pakistani cricket legend and a critic of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. Newsweek's Washington bureau chief, Dan Klaidman, said the apparent error was "terribly unfortunate," and he offered the magazine's sympathies to the victims. But he said "different forces" were at work that helped spark the riots. "It's clear that people seized on the Newsweek report to advance their own agendas, and that that was part of it," he said. "But I also think that there's an enormous amount of pent-up and not-so-pent-up anti-American rage and sentiment in that region." "There are a lot of people who think that our war on terror and our war in Iraq is a much wider war against Islam," he said. At a Pentagon news conference Thursday, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cited U.S. commanders as saying the protests in Jalalabad, at least, were more about local politics than anti-American sentiment stirred by the Newsweek report.

To: steve harris who wrote (682359)	5/16/2005 12:27:16 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

How pathetic is this? Newsweek's Washington bureau chief, Dan Klaidman, said the apparent error was "terribly unfortunate," and he offered the magazine's sympathies to the victims. But he said "different forces" were at work that helped spark the riots.

To: steve harris who wrote (682359)	5/16/2005 2:42:58 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Eh? Sounds like a 'non-denial denial' from the authorities, to me: "...Whitaker wrote that the magazine's information came from "a knowledgeable U.S. government source," and before publishing the item, writers Michael Isikoff and John Barry sought comment from two Defense Department officials. One declined to respond, and the other challenged another part of the story but did not dispute the Quran charge, Whitaker said." "But on Friday, a top Pentagon spokesman told the magazine that a review of the military's investigation concluded: "It was never meant to look into charges of Quran desecration." The spokesman also said the Pentagon had investigated "other desecration charges by detainees and found them 'not credible."' "Whitaker added that the magazine's original source later said he could not be sure he read about the alleged Quran incident in the report they cited, and that it might have been in another document." NOTE: nobody ever says that it didn't happen, or that the charge isn't 'credible'... only that it might have been documented in a 'different document'... and that different allegations of desecration had been found to be not credible.