Too Little, Too Late is the headline for the ABC News story on the retraction. Ain't it the truth.
Muslims brushed off an apology to readers that appeared in this week's edition of the newsweekly that acknowledged errors in a story alleging U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Koran, Islam's holy book. Interestingly enough, Newsweek has an Arabic issue but there was no mention of the apology in this week's issue. Critics called it a strategic move in the face of the overwhelming and violent reaction. The report sparked protests in Afghanistan, where at least 15 were killed and more than 100 injured.
Newsweek later retracted the story entirely.
Many Muslims believe Newsweek succumbed to pressure from the U.S. government to backtrack. Many believe that that whatever the truth may be, the harm has been done.
As has been said a zillion times today, and as I wrote earlier, the genie has left the bottle. This is one hole that allowed too much leakage before it was plugged. It is perhaps a reasonable question to wonder whether this should have been published even were it corroborated. That the story cannot be verified makes publishing it all the more vile.
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin reporting.
UPDATE: Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice reviews the chronology of News-weak's shifting defenses, and ultimately their retraction. Note the effort to avoid retraction earlier despite "regret that we got any part of our story wrong."
UPDATE: Similar thoughts on the news value of this story, even if true, from Captain Ed:
This story was just as pointless; what possible news value did a flushed Qu'ran have for the American reader? First, no one bothered to even ask themselves if the story sounded plausible. How would a flushed Qu'ran promote cooperation from a Muslim terrorist? Perhaps threatening to do so would get some positive reaction, but as we've seen in reaction to the story, actually flushing one in front of an Islamist is much more likely to steel themselves against any kind of cooperation. Second, even it did happen, all toilet physics to the contrary, what of it? Does that constitute some sort of Geneva Convention violation? In view of the hand-chopping and rape rooms of Saddam Hussein, maintaining that argument borders on the macabre.
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