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Michael appeared on Sunday Morning to discuss the Quran desecration story.
(It really is frightening how the stupid act of [apparently] one person could ripple out and cause a lot of problems not only in Iraq but elsewhere in the Islamic world. We haven't heard the last of this, I fear...)
ALINA CHO:
And we begin this half hour with a delicate situation
in Iraq. This morning, the U.S. is apologizing for an
American soldier who apparently used the Quran,
Islam's holy book, for target practice. Our Michael
Ware is following the developments from Baghdad. He
joins us now live.
Hey Michael, good morning to you. CNN has obtained
copies of the pictures of the Quran, as you well know
it shows bullet wounds, an expletive scrawled on one
of the pages. In fact, so bad that CNN has elected
not to show it. What has the reaction been there and
exactly what happened?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alina, that's
right. We actually had a CNN presence at a ceremony
yesterday where this situation had become so
inflammatory over the past week here in Baghdad that
the U.S. commander of all forces in the capital had
to publicly apologize, virtually prostrating himself
before the local community. Now, we first heard of
this through the insurgency and then through the
local people of this district of Baghdad. What
happened is about a week or so ago, at a small-arms
firing range near an Iraqi police station, some
American soldiers went and did some target practice.
Now, an Iraqi policeman -- according to the military,
but an Iraqi militia commander or militia member
according to the Iraqis themselves -- went to that
range and found what the soldiers had been shooting
at. He was absolutely dismayed to find it was a Holy
Quran riddled with bullets. And inside was scrawled
some expletive graffiti, a reference to the film
"Team America." Now, the locals then were obviously
enraged but they approached the American commanders.
The American commanders knew how incendiary this act
was, so they immediately launched an investigation,
and on Saturday, they announced the details of that
investigation including the removal of the staff
sergeant, a sniper, from Iraq as punishment. And
Major General Jeffrey Hammond, the commander of
Baghdad, had to say this to the local sheikhs and
militia members.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAJ. GEN. JEFFREY HAMMOND, COMMANDER OF BAGHDAD: I
come before you today seeking your forgiveness. In a
most humble manner I look in your eyes today and I
say please forgive me and my soldiers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WARE: Now, that shows you how much General Hammond
realized this was an explosive issue. Indeed, he went
on to say the sniper who had done this had lost his
honor and didn't deserve serving the Army or the
Iraqis here in Baghdad anymore and then we see the
American brigade commander for that area presenting
the sheikhs with a new Quran and he kisses it and
touches it to his forehead before he hands it over.
Alina.
CHO: Michael, you have been in the region for several
years, you know this Iraq story better than most. As
you well know, for an American audience the most
glaring example of abuse by U.S. military would be
Abu Ghraib. I'm just wondering how you think this
incident compares to that?
WARE: Well, clearly this is not quite an Abu Ghraib.
I mean, Abu Ghraib really is in a dimension of its
own. However, let's look at other cases around the
world where we see that the Islamic world feels that
its religion has been slighted. There was a report
from Afghanistan that American forces had flushed a
Quran down the toilet. Now, the protests and
demonstrations that that sparked saw many, many
people killed and it set American relations backwards
there in that country and in Pakistan.
We also saw the example of the cartoons by the Danish
satirist in that newspaper. That inflamed tensions
across the Islamic world.
CHO: Yes.
WARE: Now, to desecrate a Holy Quran, filling it full
of bullets and then writing an expletive in there,
really had the potential to just destroy this fragile
alliance that the Americans had worked so hard to
forge --
CHO: It most certainly -
WARE: ... with the Sunni insurgency. Alina.
CHO: Most certainly did and a rare mea culpa coming
from the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. Michael
Ware, our man in Baghdad. Michael, thank you.
T.J..