US interim report into Quran desecration investigation
Regional-USA, Politics, 5/27/2005

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Lawrence Di Rita saidÊ yesterday ÒAs I mentioned to you earlier, we are very happy and pleased to have Brigadier General Jay Hood, who is the commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo.Ê General Hood has been engaged in -- and is currently engaged in the commander's inquiry with respect to the situation involving the use of religious articles at Guantanamo. I mentioned he continues his investigation -- his inquiry.Ê He's not finished with it.Ê It's not our normal practice, nor will it be our normal practice in the future, to offer interim results of our inquiries.Ê But under the circumstances of this particular inquiry and what occurred as the result of the original story, we thought it was appropriate to do our best to provide such information as we can at a point at which we've got some understanding of exactly what we know. There's more we'll learn, and when we learn that and when we complete the inquiry, we'll provide it.Ó

Here are some of the comments by Hood:
Hood :To date, we have reviewed over three years worth of records compiled by Joint Task Force Guantanamo and its headquarter predecessors to answer these questions.Ê We've reviewed approximately 31,000 documents, both electronic and hard copy.Ê And what I'd like to do now is provide you an interim update to my inquiry in terms of our findings.
Ê
Hood : First off, I'd like you to know that we have found no credible evidence that a member of the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay ever flushed a Quran down a toilet.Ê We did identify 13 incidents of alleged mishandling of the Quran by Joint Task Force personnel.

Hood : Ten of those were by a guard and three by interrogators.

Hood : We found that in only five of those 13 incidents, four by guards and one by an interrogator, there was what could be broadly defined as mishandling of a Quran.Ê None of these five incidents was a result of a failure to follow standard operating procedures in place at the time the incident occurred.


Hood : We are currently screening other miscellaneous documents for allegations of Quran mishandling that may have credibility; that includes habeas pleadings or accounts filed by habeas litigators, and newspaper accounts.
Ê
Worth noting that regarding HoodÕs statements about Òstandard operating proceduresÓ of the US interrogators has come under great controversy when the White House and the Justice department reportedly issued fuzzy guidelines that in essence allowed torture and other practices that could be in violation to the Geneva Convention, an issue that was seen as justifiable by US officials in light of the September 9/11 incident, and the need of the US to get important information from these detainees.

Previous Stories:
  US officials aware of old Quran desecration reports   (5/26/2005)
  Amnesty International: the victims of the USA's 'war on terror'   (5/17/2005)
  Retraction of Quran desecration story, Guantanamo controversy continues   (5/17/2005)

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