NBC Airs New Quran Desecration Rumors

NBC's "Today" show aired unsubstantiated claims on Tuesday that U.S. troops had desecrated the Quran on at least two occasions, in a report that echoed a now retracted Newsweek story that has inflamed the Muslim world and led to deadly riots.

The "Today" broadcast also covered an allegation that U.S. troops had gang-raped an Iraqi woman.


Commenting on the impact of Newsweek's blunder, NBC Middle East correspondent Richard Engel said the magazine's Quran desecration story was just one of several circulating throughout Iraq.

"There's one rumor spreading today in local newspapers," Engel said. "It's been on the local television and it was also broadcast on the Al-Jazeera television network. It's that U.S. Marines, while raiding a mosque in Ramadi, kicked a Quran and then took it and spray painted in black paint a cross right on top of the Quran."

Engel said another rumor "came out a couple of weeks ago [and] was in a local newspaper.

"It said that during a search of a woman's bag, U.S. soldiers with a team of dogs were sniffing through her bag. She had a Quran in her bag. The dog pulled the Muslim holy book out of the bag with its mouth and the soldiers started laughing."

The NBC newsman then sourced an allegation by a female terrorist suspect who had been detained at Abu Ghraib, who aired her claim in an Iraqi newspaper.

"[She said] she was raped every night by six American soldiers," Engel reported, before adding that U.S. officials deny the claim.

Syndicated talk radio host Laura Ingraham, who aired portions of Engel's report on her broadcast Tuesday night, was outraged, telling her audience, "We have an NBC reporter repeating rumors that are clearly being spread by terrorists to inflame sectarian violence in Iraq and to start a civil war."