The Newsweek story is one of those journalistic incidents that are wrong in their sourcing but may well be right about the truth of the matter. The allegations of detainees (not "authenticated," as the Times reminds us) have been made to publicize torture besides the contempt shown the Islamic religion -- abuses that have in fact been widely "authenticated" by the Pentagon's own Fay/Jones report, the Church report, the Ryder report, the Taguba report, the Schlesinger report, the Schmidt report, and reports by nongovernmental organizations such as the Association of the Bar of the City of New York Committee on International Human Rights, Amnesty International, the American Bar Association, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Human Rights Watch, among other credible groups.

Former detainees have given highly detailed accounts of their captivity and torture. Their motives may include revenge; they may indeed be Islamist terrorists. But these claims have also been recorded by their lawyers as part of the effort to create actual trials, to bring detainees like them to justice before the law, which the Bush administration is fighting tooth and nail.

One of the most graphic accounts of brutality is provided by those known as the Tipton Three, three men from the West Midlands of Britain who were captured in Afghanistan in 2001, held in Guantánamo, and released to Britain in March 2004 without being charged with any crimes. After their release, in June 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. court system has the authority to decide whether foreign nationals held at Guantánamo are wrongfully imprisoned. The Tipton Three recounted their horrific travails to lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights, who represented them before the Supreme Court and produced a 115-page composite statement. In one of the many gruesome descriptions, a former detainee says: "The behavior of the guards towards our religious practices as well as the Koran was also, in my view, designed to cause us as much distress as possible. They would kick the Koran, throw it into the toilet and generally disrespect it."

Before the Newsweek mistake, there had been several such reports in the American press. The Washington Post, on March 26, 2003, reported several incidents of abuse of the Quran: "Merza Khan, who had been captured in northern Afghanistan while fighting for the Taliban, said Americans in Kandahar tied him up and alternately forced him to lie face down on the ground, then squat with his hands on his head for hours. He also said he saw American soldiers throw the Koran on the ground and sit on it while in Kandahar."

Knight Ridder Newspapers reported on March 6, 2005: "Captives at the Guantánamo Bay prison are alleging that guards kicked and stomped on Korans and cursed Allah, and that interrogators punished them by taking away their pants, knowing that would prevent them from praying. Guards also mocked captives at prayer and censored Islamic religious books, the captives allege. And in one incident, they say, a prison barber cut a cross-shaped patch of hair on an inmate's head. Most of the complaints come from the recently declassified notes of defense lawyers' interviews with prisoners, which Guantánamo officials initially stamped 'secret.' Under a federal court procedure for due-process appeals by about 100 inmates, portions are now being declassified."

The Los Angeles Times, on April 15, 2005, quoted a former detainee: "He said their Korans were taken and handled disrespectfully ... Al-Mutairi recalled three prisoner hunger strikes ... A third came after the Korans were mishandled."

The New York Times, on May 1, 2005, reported: "A former interrogator at Guantánamo, in an interview with The Times, confirmed the accounts of the hunger strikes, including the public expression of regret over the treatment of the Korans."

Overexcited and undersourced, Newsweek rushed into print with a story similar to those other major news organizations have published without a murmur of protest from the Bush administration. When Newsweek's story was used as a propaganda device by Islamists in Afghanistan, the Bush administration turned the tables on Newsweek, holding it responsible for the hostility of the Muslim world. The Bush administration has been successful in this single endeavor of journalistic criticism, detecting one unsound story among many unchallenged ones. But no amount of abject apologies by Newsweek's editors for shoddy practice can undo the damage done by Bush for his torture policy.

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