The word that Newsweek has possibly blown it's story about the how US interrogators flushed a Koran down the toilet at Gitmo is disturbing. I have little doubt that these other similar and even worse atrocities have occurred in American detention centers. And that's bad enough. It's pretty clear that there are elements within the US military that have a little respect for other cultures as they have for the rule of law. But what's really disturbing to me is this is yet another blow to the tender flanks of professional journalism.

You see, whether Newsweek is right or wrong, there are many people in this country who will assume that Newsweek was wrong and more than that, deliberately published this story in an unpatriotic attempt to bring down the administration. Therefore anything else the magazine publishes from here on out will not be credible. Don't believe me? Just read this and you'll understand.

Newsweek, for it's part has issued a statement of regret for having caused violence with its reporting, but it sticking by their story, refusing to retract. Here's the statement in it's entirety:

Did a report in NEWSWEEK set off a wave of deadly anti-American riots in Afghanistan? That's what numerous news accounts suggested last week as angry Afghans took to the streets to protest reports, linked to us, that U.S. interrogators had desecrated the Qur'an while interrogating Muslim terror suspects. We were as alarmed as anyone to hear of the violence, which left at least 15 Afghans dead and scores injured. But I think it's important for the public to know exactly what we reported, why, and how subsequent events unfolded.

Two weeks ago, in our issue dated May 9, Michael Isikoff and John Barry reported in a brief item in our Periscope section that U.S. military investigators had found evidence that American guards at the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had committed infractions in trying to get terror suspects to talk, including in one case flushing a Qur'an down a toilet. Their information came from a knowledgeable U.S. government source, and before deciding whether to publish it we approached two separate Defense Department officials for comment. One declined to give us a response; the other challenged another aspect of the story but did not dispute the Qur'an charge.

Although other major news organizations had aired charges of Qur'an desecration based only on the testimony of detainees, we believed our story was newsworthy because a U.S. official said government investigators turned up this evidence. So we published the item. After several days, newspapers in Pakistan and Afghanistan began running accounts of our story. At that point, as Evan Thomas, Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai report this week, the riots started and spread across the country, fanned by extremists and unhappiness over the economy.

Last Friday, a top Pentagon spokesman told us that a review of the probe cited in our story showed that it was never meant to look into charges of Qur'an desecration. The spokesman also said the Pentagon had investigated other desecration charges by detainees and found them "not credible." Our original source later said he couldn't be certain about reading of the alleged Qur'an incident in the report we cited, and said it might have been in other investigative documents or drafts. Top administration officials have promised to continue looking into the charges, and so will we. But we regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst.

Just to make matters worse, you have White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan saying, "The report has had serious consequences. People have lost their lives. The image of the United States abroad has been damaged." And he's absolutely right, but are we supposed to take him seriously that the reputation of the US has been damaged more by a poorly sourced story in a weekly news magazine than by bringing was to the Islamic world on false pretenses using manufactured intelligence or systematically torturing Muslim detainees?

Come on, now.

***UPDATE*** 2:57PM - ABC reports Newsweek has retracted it's story. Poor, poor Newsweek. Once so relevant, now you can adios your credibility.