WASHINGTON, May 16 (UPI) -- Newsweek magazine issued a retraction Monday of a story reporting that U.S. troops had desecrated the Koran, the Muslim holy book.
The story led to anti-U.S. riots in Islamic countries and the death of more than a dozen people.
The weekly news magazine had reported in its issue dated May 9 that interrogators placed copies of the Koran in washrooms in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and had flushed one of the holy books down a toilet to get prisoners to talk, Salon.com reported.
"Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Koran abuse at Guantanamo Bay," Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker said in a statement
The Pentagon called Newsweek "irresponsible" Monday for its "demonstrably false" story.
"Newsweek hid behind anonymous sources which, by their own admission, do not withstand scrutiny," said Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman. "Unfortunately, they cannot retract the damage they have done to this nation or those that were viciously attacked by those false allegations."
