Check the Dates

In the furor last week over a Newsweek item, since retracted, saying that Americans at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, flushed the Koran down a toilet while interrogating Muslim detainees, it was noted that the Defense Department had issued instructions on the proper treatment of the Koran. The instructions were contained in a memo released by the Joint Detention Operation Group - JDOG - to all its personnel at Guantánamo in January 2003.

In the latest disclosure, declassified FBI reports showed that detainees at the U.S. naval prison in Cuba told FBI and military interrogators on a number of occasions as early as April 2002 three months after the first prisoners arrived at the makeshift prison that guards abused them and desecrated the Quran.