Larry Di Rita, official Pentagon spokesman, May 17, responding to a question about descration of the Koran:
Those types of allegations have not previously been — there’s — we’ve not previously included that in any kind of previous investigations into detainee operations, because there haven’t been credible allegations to that effect.
(Emphasis added.)
Red Cross told U.S. of Koran incidents
By Cam Simpson and Mark Silva
Washington Bureau
Published May 19, 2005
WASHINGTON — The International Committee of the Red Cross documented what it called credible information about U.S. personnel disrespecting or mishandling Korans at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and pointed it out to the Pentagon in confidential reports during 2002 and early 2003, an ICRC spokesman said Wednesday.
Representatives of the ICRC, who have played a key role in investigating abuse allegations at the facility in Cuba and other U.S. military prisons, never witnessed such incidents firsthand during on-site visits, said Simon Schorno, an ICRC spokesman in Washington.
But ICRC delegates, who have been granted access to the secretive camp since January 2002, gathered and corroborated enough similar, independent reports from detainees to raise the issue multiple times with Guantanamo commanders and with Pentagon officials, Schorno said in an interview Wednesday.
(Emphasis added.)
Remind me again why it’s Newsweek’s behavior that’s supposed to be the scandal?
Oh yeah, I forgot: Newsweek was reporting news that we would prefer not be true.
That, of course, is completely unforgivable.
