Personally I think this was just media hype all along.
The United States military is unlikely to hold court-martial proceedings in three cases of deliberate mishandling of the Quran at Guantanamo Bay prison, a top military official said on Monday.
Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters during a visit to Malaysia that only two or three complaints of mishandling of the Muslim holy book turned out to have involved actions done on purpose.
"This is serious, but it's clearly not "? probably "? going to result in court-martial activity,"? Myers said. "But it depends on why they did it "? what the motivation was,"? he told reporters in response to a question.
Myers is visiting Malaysia after attending a security conference in Singapore. He is visiting the region to hold talks with regional leaders.
The U.S. military released details last week about five cases in which the Quran was kicked, stepped on, soaked in water, and in one instance, splashed with a guard's urine falling through an air vent.
Myers: Detainees flushed Quran pages
These were among 10 such cases reported among more than 28,000 prisoner interrogations, military officials say. Myers said there was no case of a Quran being flushed down a toilet, though detainees themselves did use pages of the book to try to block their toilets.
From among 68,000 people detained in the struggle against violent extremism, Myers said, there had been 325 accusations of detainees being badly treated, of which 100 had been confirmed.
Punishments meted out in some of these cases ranged from courts-martial to administrative action, he said.
Myers said the military gave staff detailed instructions on how to handle the Quran.
"The people who don't obey the rules are either committing a criminal act or perhaps are overzealous,"? he added. "You can figure out the reasons why people do what they do."?
The United States holds about 520 men at Guantanamo, where they are denied rights accorded under international law to prisoners of war. Many have been held without charge for more than three years.
'A few isolated incidents'
The White House sought Saturday to minimize damage, saying that just a few people had violated policy and accusing the media of blowing "isolated incidents" out of proportion.
"It is unfortunate that some have chosen to take out of context a few isolated incidents by a few individuals without making clear the policies and practices of the overwhelming vast majority, the 99.9 percent, of our military personnel," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
McClellan said he was referring to "some media coverage and some commentary."
"There were three times as many confirmed incidents of (Quran) abuse by detainees, a number which were far worse than the few isolated incidents of mishandling by a few individuals that violated military policies and practices," McClellan added.
"The military expects its high standards to be met, and does not tolerate or condone it when individuals do not "? as this report makes clear," McClellan said.
The White House's harsh response followed President Bush's blunt dismissal last week of an Amnesty International report which described the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo as a gulag and said the United States was responsible for an upsurge in human rights violations around the world. Bush called the allegations "absurd."
Newsweek's role
Last month, the White House blamed Newsweek magazine for damaging America's image in the Muslim world with a report that interrogators had flushed at least one copy of the Muslim holy book down a toilet to try to make detainees talk.
Former Guantanamo prisoners and lawyers for detainees have long accused U.S. personnel at Guantanamo of putting the Quran into toilets.
With anti-American sentiment already strong in the Muslim world because of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, the Newsweek report sparked violent protests in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia and Gaza.
Under pressure, Newsweek retracted the report. But McClellan said at the time that the magazine should "help repair the damage that has been done, particularly in the region," by explaining "what happened and why they got it wrong."
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