FBI Report: Flushing the Koran in 2002

[Questioninggeller]

FBI memo reports Guantanamo guards flushing Koran

May 25, 2005

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An FBI agent wrote in a 2002 document made public on Wednesday that a detainee held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had accused American jailers there of flushing the Koran down a toilet.

The release of the declassified document came the week after the Bush administration denounced as wrong a May 9 Newsweek article that stated U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo had flushed a Koran down a toilet to try to make detainees talk.

The magazine retracted the article, which had triggered protests in Afghanistan in which 16 people died.

The newly released document, dated Aug. 1, 2002, contained a summary of statements made days earlier by a detainee, whose name was redacted, in two interviews with an FBI special agent, whose name also was withheld, at the Guantanamo prison for foreign terrorism suspects.

The American Civil Liberties Union released the memo and a series of other FBI documents it obtained from the government under court order through the Freedom of Information Act.

"Personally, he has nothing against the United States. The guards in the detention facility do not treat him well. Their behavior is bad. About five months ago, the guards beat the detainees. They flushed a Koran in the toilet," the FBI agent wrote.

"The guards dance around when the detainees are trying to pray. The guards still do these things," the FBI agent wrote.

The Pentagon stated last week it had received "no credible and specific allegations" that U.S. personnel at Guantanamo had put a Koran in the toilet.

The documents indicated that detainees were making allegations that they had been abused and that the Muslim holy book had been mishandled as early as April 2002, about three months after the first detainees arrived at Guantanamo.

In other documents, FBI agents stated that Guantanamo detainees also accused U.S. personnel of kicking the Koran and throwing it to the floor, and described beatings by guards. But one document cited a detainee who accused a guard of dropping a Koran, prompting an "uprising" by prisoners, when it was the prisoner himself who dropped it.

The Pentagon had no immediate comment on the documents.
...
Former detainees and a lawyer for current prisoners previously have stated that U.S. personnel at Guantanamo had placed the Koran in a toilet, but the Pentagon last week said it did not view those allegations as credible.

'MORE CREDIBLE'

"Unfortunately, one thing we've learned over the last couple of years is that detainee statements about their treatment at Guantanamo and other detention centers sometimes have turned out to be more credible than U.S. government statements," said ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050525/ts_nm/security_guantanamo_koran_dc

It's looking like Newsweek was right...

 

[Mycroft]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050525/ts_nm/security_guantanamo_koran_dc

It's looking like Newsweek was right...

In the opinion of the ACLU, detainee statements about their treatment at Guantanamo are more credible than the U.S. government. If you start off with that presumption, then the U.S. will never be able to defend itself against any charge ever.

This really adds nothing new. There were detainee allegations before this news article, just not credibe ones.

 

[shecky]

What I didn't get was that the White House seemed to challenge the press to dig deeper and find the facts about the incident. I would have thought they'd be satisfied not to dredge up the issue of abuse yet again. Even if the particular instance in Newsweek turned out to be false, rehashing all the old stories is bound to reflect poorly on the US.

 

[Brown]

It's looking like Newsweek was right...

Well... Newsweek said it was a "military report," not an FBI report. If that sort of shoddy reporting isn't worthy of a riot, I don't know what is.

Also, some news services are reporting that the FBI document reports that the the Quran was flushed IN a toilet, not down a toilet, as Newsweek reported. Once again, shoddy work on Newsweek's part, making Newsweek exclusively responsible for the unrest.

Seriously, the only surprise here is that the document was made public. The interrogators who felt they had free license to do anything to break the prisoners probably never expected that their tactics would ever be disclosed to the world.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Re: Re: FBI Report: Flushing the Koran in 2002

In the opinion of the ACLU, detainee statements about their treatment at Guantanamo are more credible than the U.S. government. If you start off with that presumption, then the U.S. will never be able to defend itself against any charge ever.

And if you start off with the opposite view, you can ignore the whole Pat Tillman business, and Abu Ghraib, and all those WMDs. How many false stories must the government tell before we stop presuming honesty? I'm not taking prisoner stories on faith, but I'm not taking government ones on faith either.

Faith is dead.

 

[Hutch]

Re: Re: FBI Report: Flushing the Koran in 2002

In the opinion of the ACLU, detainee statements about their treatment at Guantanamo are more credible than the U.S. government..

However, the OP quote said:

.....that detainee statements about their treatment at Guantanamo and other detention centers sometimes have turned out to be more credible than U.S. government statements,"

Easy on that spin cycle there, Mycroft.

That said, the case remains 'unproven', IMHO. Could very well have happened, but not a smoking gun.

 

[Questioninggeller]

Re: Re: FBI Report: Flushing the Koran in 2002

In the opinion of the ACLU, detainee statements about their treatment at Guantanamo are more credible than the U.S. government. If you start off with that presumption, then the U.S. will never be able to defend itself against any charge ever.

The original statement was:

"Unfortunately, one thing we've learned over the last couple of years is that detainee statements about their treatment at Guantanamo and other detention centers sometimes have turned out to be more credible than U.S. government statements," said ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer.

"Sometimes" isn't a presumption, meaning they both lack credbility.

This really adds nothing new. There were detainee allegations before this news article, just not credibe ones.

This does because the government has denied evidence of it, and this is prior to the event in question.

 

[Hutch]

Questioning Geller:

Beat ya to the argument by 3 minutes...

Or as we say on the Bad Astronomy BB, you've been To-Seeked

 

[Questioninggeller]

Questioning Geller:

Beat ya to the argument by 3 minutes...

Or as we say on the Bad Astronomy BB, you've been To-Seeked

LOL, I saw that after I posted.

 

[President Bush]

Re: Re: FBI Report: Flushing the Koran in 2002

...detainee statements about their treatment at Guantanamo are more credible than the U.S. government.

Abu Ghraib does not reflect the nature of the American people. That's not the way we do things in America. Americans are basically wonderful. Like a little baby on a motorcycle that God sent to die for our sins.

Like humanity's sinful nature strapped beneath my personal fear no evil skull and wings Harley Davidson belt buckle. I'm talkin' bad to the bone 1203 cc. displacement with Screamin' Eagle High Performance .536" lift cams, cyberpunk bar-code license plates, mother-the-blood eerie charisma and a hideous gas tank.

 

[Skeptic]

It's looking like Newsweek was right...

Not exactly.

Newsweek's report was based, not on an FBI report, but on the accusations of a well-known ex-detainee after his release--an accusations shown to be without merit, as that same detainee had never mentioned such an incident before in any of the many interviews they gave, and in fact said that his treatment was good.

Even if it turns out that some other guard had disrespected some other detainee in this way, it would not make Newsweek's original story "right". If I accuse you of child molesting for no reason and then it turns out that you robbed a bank, I am not "right" just because in both cases you did a criminal action.

As an aside, this "revelation" seems awfully suspicious: Newsweek carried a story about prisoner X saying the Koran was flashed down the toilet? It was wrong? Quick, everybody--find us a story about anybody in Guatanamo bay who claims the Koran was mistrtreated in any way that has to do with toilets!

Seems like rear-guard action by MSM reportes to me: an attempt to "prove" that while the Newsweek story wasn't actually true, it was "fake but accurate"; and isn't that good enough when bashing Bush? Well, no: even if this story is true, the Newsweek story is still false.

 

[Questioninggeller]

Re: Re: FBI Report: Flushing the Koran in 2002

It's looking like Newsweek was right...

Not exactly.

Newsweek's report was based, not on an FBI report, but on the accusations of a well-known ex-detainee after his release--an accusations shown to be without merit,

Not exactly:

Newsweek said Michael Isikoff, who reported the item with John Barry, became interested in the story after FBI e-mails that revealed an uglier side of life in Guantanamo were released late last year.

"Isikoff knew that military investigators at Southern Command [which runs the Guantanamo prison] were looking into the allegations," the article said.

"So he called a longtime reliable source, a senior U.S. government official who was knowledgeable about the matter.

"The source told Isikoff that the [investigators'] report would include new details that were not in the FBI e-mails, including mention of flushing the Quran down a toilet."

Whitaker wrote that before publishing the account the magazine approached two Pentagon officials for comment. One declined and the other challenged a different aspect of the report, Whitaker wrote.

Myers said at the Pentagon briefing Thursday the military was looking into the allegations.

From: http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/05/15/newsweek.quran/index.html/

Even if it turns out that some other guard had disrespected some other detainee in this way, it would not make Newsweek's original story "right". If I accuse you of child molesting for no reason and then it turns out that you robbed a bank, I am not "right" just because in both cases you did a criminal action.

You mind we change your analogy? Imagine one was accused of child molesting in 2005 without proof, but we did have proof of it in 2002. Doesn't that make the 2005 story a little more plausible to believe the accuser?

Newsweek retracted the story because no offical has confirmed it then the original source backed away from his story:

He said investigators had so far been unable to confirm a "toilet incident, except for one case, a log entry, which they still have to confirm, where a detainee was reported by a guard to be ripping pages out of a Quran and putting [them] in the toilet to stop it up as a protest. But not where the U.S. did it."
...
day later, Isikoff reached his source again, who said that although he remembered reading investigative reports about desecration of the Quran, including a toilet incident, "he could no longer be sure that these concerns had surfaced in the [Southern Command] report."
...
Isikoff found two other references to Qurans being tossed into toilets or latrines, the magazine reported.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/05/15/newsweek.quran/index.html/

 

[Brown]

Re: Re: Re: FBI Report: Flushing the Koran in 2002

And if you start off with the opposite view, you can ignore the whole Pat Tillman business, and Abu Ghraib, and all those WMDs. How many false stories must the government tell before we stop presuming honesty?

There has been so much lying by U.S. government officials that the United States's credibility worldwide has been trashed. This damage to our national credibility and prestige will take decades to repair (assuming that it can be repaired at all); and it is certain that the Bush "administration" is not competent to do it, because (for one reason) the Bush folks don't even think there is a problem.

As for me, I no longer trust anything official coming out of the White House or the Pentagon. These guys might be telling the truth, but they've lied enough to the public that they do not deserve to be trusted.

 

[Ziggurat]

Re: Re: Re: Re: FBI Report: Flushing the Koran in 2002

As for me, I no longer trust anything official coming out of the White House or the Pentagon. These guys might be telling the truth, but they've lied enough to the public that they do not deserve to be trusted.

There's a lot of lying going on, indeed. But it's mostly from the press. Say what you want to about politicians, but career government officials and employees don't actually lie very much at all. Rather, the problem from them is that they cannot be relied upon to reveal everything they know. Their statements may be wrong, and quite often are incomplete, but they actually lie very, very rarely.

This whole business stinks to high heaven. This latest report basically relies on FBI memos which detail detainee allegations, which to my knowlege haven't been substantiated by anyone including the FBI. We know that Al Quaeda members are taught to make allegations of abuse, mistreatement, etc. Newsweek couldn't get their original story story right, so te press just circled the wagon and went looking for anything else that would sound the same, even if it only relied on prisoner allegations. Hell, even the riots supposedly sparked by the Newsweek report may have been planned well in advance. And the reports of casualties? Can't even believe those: there hasn't been a single name released of ANYONE actually killed in any of those riots. It's not clear anyone actually died at all:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44395
The whole thing is just a mess. I can't trust ANYTHING the press is saying about this without a whole lot of confirmation.

 

[Mycroft]

Re: Re: Re: FBI Report: Flushing the Koran in 2002

And if you start off with the opposite view, you can ignore the whole Pat Tillman business, and Abu Ghraib, and all those WMDs. How many false stories must the government tell before we stop presuming honesty? I'm not taking prisoner stories on faith, but I'm not taking government ones on faith either.

Faith is dead.

Where are the false stories?

Pat Tillman was reported as a friendly fire mishap from the beginning, or at least that's how I remember it. Abu Graib was certainly a tragedy, but it was under investigation before the story broke and there was no particular cover-up after it became public. WMD’s? Most people agree there was reason to believe Saddam had them, being wrong isn’t the same as lying.

I’m not a fan of this administration either, but going by your examples you’re confusing events you don’t like with misinformation.

 

[Donks]

Re: Re: Re: Re: FBI Report: Flushing the Koran in 2002

Where are the false stories?

Pat Tillman was reported as a friendly fire mishap from the beginning, or at least that's how I remember it.

You remember wrong.

(U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Matthew Beevers) said Tillman was killed by enemy fire, but he had no information about what type of weapons were involved in the assault, or whether he died instantly.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4815441/

 

[punchdrunk]

Re: Re: Re: Re: FBI Report: Flushing the Koran in 2002

Where are the false stories?

Pat Tillman was reported as a friendly fire mishap from the beginning, or at least that's how I remember it.

fyi, not from the beginning:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/22/AR2005052200865.html

Immediately, the Army kept the soldiers on the ground quiet and told Tillman's family and the public that he was killed by enemy fire while storming a hill, barking orders to his fellow Rangers. After a public memorial service, at which Tillman received the Silver Star, the Army told Tillman's family what had really happened, that he had been killed by his own men.

eta: er, what Donks said...

 

[rikzilla]

All I wanna know is if the FBI director came out and said their intelligence on koranic potty dunking was "a slam dunk!"
(a messy, yet flamboyant way to show disrespect for the purported words of Allah)

(note: I was looking for a good koran-abuse smiley, and this just seems to be tailor made! Where's Mr. Smiley putting that koran anyhow??)

Let's for a moment assume that these terrible reports are correct. US policy dictates that the Koran be handled with respect by US Military members @ GITMO...so presumably anyone not doing so could be prosecuted for not following policy. However, if that specific policy were not in place,...Koran abuse would not be any kind of crime. (unless the Koran was not the personal property of the person abusing it that is...)

So, is Koran abuse a crime? Should it be a crime?? If so, would it be a misdemeanor or a felony? Should we also enact laws protecting the sanctity of other holy books?? Our flag? What do we do when ordinary Americans punctuate their street protests by abusing a Koran?

In the end....isn't Koran abuse actually a first amendment right? If so, what comes first in America? The Koran, or the Constitution?

-z

 

[Mycroft]

fyi, not from the beginning:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/22/AR2005052200865.html



eta: er, what Donks said...

Okay, I've read the stories.

It seems to me the military was clearly wrong to fabricate the initial story of getting killed leading a charge against the enemy, but if their motives were based on recruitment or just maintaining his "hero" image for the benefit of the family are in doubt. My inclination, based on the military having told the family the truth shortly after the service, is that it’s more the later than the former, despite it being a poor decision.

From that point on, the multiple investigations and the families dissatisfaction with the findings seems more the result of grief than anything else. The family wants to make sense out of something that’s inherently senseless, and the military keeps trying to satisfy them because Tilman’s celebrity status makes their feelings more important than the families of other dead soldiers.

In all honesty, do you really think this reflects on the credibility of the entire US government, or just those involved with this situation?

 

[Donks]

In all honesty, do you really think this reflects on the credibility of the entire US government, or just those involved with this situation?

I'm not sure who you are asking, but in this particular case I'd say it reflects only on the credibility of those involved. So perhaps just Lt.Col Beevers, and maybe his CO, or whoever thought "Hey, let's not tell them how exactly it went down just just yet. Let them bury the guy in peace." I would be much more concerned with the claims that the administration politicizes science, if those claims can be shown to be accurate (and I haven't been paying the attention I should, so I don't know if they have been shown accurate or wrong).