E-Mail This Article to a Friend Target of convenience The White House blames Newsweek’s erroneous reporting for anti-American violence. Next time, it won’t be so lucky.

ALL IT TOOK was an erroneous 300-word news item and a Pakistani cricket player–turned–politician to set off anti-American protests last week that spread from Gaza to Indonesia. Newsweek has retracted its claim that US investigators have determined that interrogators at the secret prison in Guantánamo Bay had flushed a Koran down a toilet (see "Don’t Quote Me"). But Muslims found the story all too believable, given the Bush administration’s brutal treatment of foreign detainees and its arrogant, failed efforts to remake Muslim and Arab society.

Consider that the contagion began when Imran Khan, a legendary cricket player who is now an opposition leader in Pakistan, cited the Newsweek account as a way of attacking Pakistan’s pro-American president, Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf is a staunch ally of the Bush administration — and for his troubles, he has been the target of repeated assassination attempts. The sad reality is that the most popular political figure in Pakistan today may well be Osama bin Laden. Indeed, if Newsweek deserves some blame for the unrest, so, too, does Khan, who exploited the situation for his own political gain.

Consider, too, that the most violent of the anti-American protests took place in Afghanistan, often cited as Bush’s shining success story. At least 17 people were killed, and more than 100 injured. Afghan president Hamid Karzai — like Musharraf, a friend of the Bush administration — is under increasing pressure from the former Taliban regime and from the warlords who actually run most of his country.

The White House would like nothing better than to blame Newsweek for this outbreak of anti-Americanism. But though the news item was inadequately sourced and apparently untrue, it was published in a context that made it seem credible. In fact, several news organizations have reported allegations by former Guantánamo prisoners that interrogators had desecrated the Koran. Newsweek’s blunder doesn’t mean those allegations are untrue.

And look at what we actually know about what has gone on inside Bush’s secret prison camps. The torture and sexual humiliation that took place at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is the best-known instance, but it is far from the only example. We know from US government reports and witnesses that prisoners at Guantánamo have been tortured both physically and psychologically. Female interrogators are known to have rubbed up against Muslim men and — in one particularly notorious incident — smeared what they falsely claimed was menstrual blood on an inmate, then denied him the water he needed to wash and pray.

Given all that, the Newsweek tidbit was little more than an incremental piece of information. Yet once it became clear that the magazine had screwed up, the White House focused its fury on the media. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the story "appalling." Added White House press secretary Scott McClellan: "The report had real consequences. People have lost their lives. Our image abroad has been damaged." Never mind that, just days earlier — when it still looked like Newsweek’s item was solid — General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, blamed local conditions, rather than the media, for the outbreak of violence in Afghanistan.

Last weekend, Secretary Rice paid an emergency visit to the ramshackle Iraqi government that is slowly coming together (or, perhaps, not coming together) following the US-sponsored elections that were held in January. Rice told the Shiite and Kurd factions who control the nascent regime that they must do more to include the Sunni minority, some of whose members are thought to be behind the violent, endless insurgency. Clearly, the Bush administration is angry and worried that the Iraqis aren’t doing things the way they were told. How could they be so ungrateful?

On ABC News’s Nightline this past Monday, Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker was wrestling with the question of why his magazine’s erroneous news item had led to so much violence. "For some reason, there was a lot of tinder lying around, and our story was the match," he said. Not to excuse Newsweek’s shoddy journalism, but Whitaker was exactly right. The tinder consisted of the disastrously misguided policies of George W. Bush and his advisers. This time, they were conveniently able to blame the media for the fire that broke out. Next time, they may not be so fortunate.

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