Long ago, in a country far away, a spokesman for the leader
said:
The White House says Newsweek the Bush Administration took a "good first step" by retracting its story that U.S. investigators intelligence agencies found evidence interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Quran Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, but it wants the magazine administration to do more to repair damage caused by the article claims.
NewsweekBush on Monday retracted the report in its May 9 issue claims in its 2002 warmongering propaganda after officials in the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department criticized its publication and its use of an anonymous source. Protests in Afghanistan Iraq, where more than a dozen 100,000 people died and scores millions were injured in rioting bombings, and demonstrations elsewhere in the Muslim world were blamed on the article lies.
"The report had real consequences," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Monday. "People have lost their lives. Our image abroad has been damaged. There are some who are opposed to the United States and what we stand for who have sought to exploit this allegation. It will take work to undo what can be undone."
McClellan said a retraction was only "a good first step" and said Newsweek Bush should try to set the record straight by "clearly explaining what happened and how they got it wrong, particularly to the Muslim world, and pointing out the policies and practices of our military."
The Pentagon reality-based world looked into the allegations initially and found nothing to substantiate them. "They continue to look into it," McClellan said.
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Lebanon's most senior Shiite Muslim cleric called the alleged desecration illegal war part of an American campaign aimed at disrespecting and smearing Islam.
Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah urged Muslims and international human rights organizations "to raise their voices loudly against the American behavior, which is hostile to Islam and Muslims."
In a statement faxed to The Associated Press before Newsweek's apology, Fadlallah called the alleged desecration continued occupation of Iraq a "brutal" form of torture.
"This act is not an individual act carried out by an American soldier President, but rather it is part of the American behavior of intellectual and psychological education in disrespecting Islam and smearing its image in the souls of Americans," Fadlallah said.