The uproar over Newsweek ’s report that a government official saw an investigatory file about interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba flushing a Qur’an down a toilet to rattle detainees misses many larger, more salient points. In retracting the original story, Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker didn’t say that the act had never occurred. Rather, he said the magazine relied on a source now uncertain that he read the charge in files compiled by the Southern Command (SouthCom), which oversees the Guantanamo prison.

In fact, a story in that same issue, written by Evan Thomas, raises even more questions about alleged abuse at the military facility. He mentioned that Mike Isikoff, co-author of the original Newsweek item, checked back with his original source. “On Saturday, Isikoff spoke to his original source, the senior government official, who said that he clearly recalled reading investigative reports about mishandling the Qur’an, including a toilet incident. But the official, still speaking anonymously, could no longer be sure that these concerns had surfaced in the SouthCom report.”

Note that the story stated that the source “clearly recalled” reading reports about the incident, but was unsure it was in the SouthCom report.

In the aftermath of the riots in Afghanistan, the Newsweek reporter did additional digging.

“Isikoff had contacted a New York defense lawyer, Marc Falkoff, who is representing 13 Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo. According to Falkoff’s declassified notes, a mass-suicide attempt – when 23 detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves in August 2003 – was triggered by a guard’s dropping a Quar’an and stomping on it. One of Falkoff’s clients told him, “Another detainee tried to kill himself after the guard took his Quar’an and threw it in the toilet.”

An Army spokesman dismissed those accounts as being unbelievable.

Who would have thought the charges of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad would have been believable without those graphic photographs?

White House spokesman Scott McClellan has expressed outrage that Newsweek would go to press with such limited documentation. He called the apology “a good first step” and said the magazine should explain “what happened and why they got it wrong, particularly to people in the region.”

If that’s the standard, then the Bush administration also has plenty of explaining to do. As Rep. Fortney “Pete” Stark (D-Calif.) said: “The administration is chastising Newsweek for a story that contained a fact that turned out to be false. This is the same administration that lied to Congress, the United Nations and the American people by fabricating reasons to send us to war.”

If anything, Newsweek has been too cozy with government officials

The Newsweek story by Evan Thomas notes, “National Security Correspondent John Barry, realizing the sensitivity of the story, provided a draft of the Newsweek Periscope item to a senior Defense official, asking, ‘Is this accurate or not?’” When the official challenged one aspect of the item, the story says, “the Periscope draft was corrected to reflect that.”

Newsweek should be embarrassed – not because it made a mistake, but because it went to government officials and showed them drafts of a story prior to publication. Evidently, seeking government approval happens more often than journalists like to admit. Two years ago, Eason Jordan, head of CNN’s news division, admitted giving the Pentagon veto power over which military experts appeared on air.

In an appearance on “Reliable Sources,” Jordan said, “I went to the Pentagon myself several times before the war started and met with important people there and said, for instance, at CNN, ‘Here are the generals we’re thinking of retaining to advise us on the air and off about the war.’ And we got a big thumbs-up on all of them. That was important.”

It was also sickening. And so was another story that appeared in the March 17, 2003 issue of Newsweek.

“Saddam could decide to take Baghdad with him,“ the magazine said. “One Arab intelligence officer interviewed by Newsweek spoke of ‘the green mushroom’ over Baghdad – the modern-day caliph bidding a grotesque bio-chem farewell to the land of the living alongside thousands of his subjects as well as his enemies. Saddam wants to be remembered. He has the means and the demonic imagination. It is up to U.S. armed forces to stop him before he can achieve notoriety for all time.”

While Newsweek is issuing serial apologies, it should apologize for that one as well.