Amid widespread accusations and documentation of US military desecration of the Koran, the Pentagon held a special news conference yesterday to address the allegations. The military says it has identified five incidents of what it describes as “mishandling of a Koran” by U.S. personnel at Guantanamo Bay. Brigadier General Jay Hood refused to specify the nature of the mishandling of the Koran, other than to say it did not involve placing it in a toilet. That runs contrary to information revealed in newly declassified documents. In one 2002 document declassified this week, an FBI agent quoted a detainee in as saying guards had thrown a Koran in a toilet. General Hood said yesterday that military investigators interviewed that man this month, but did not directly ask him whether he had seen U.S. personnel put a Koran in a toilet. Here is General Jay Hood: “First off, I’d like you to know that we’ve found no credible evidence that a member of the joint task force at Guantanamo Bay, ever flushed a Koran down a toilet. We did identify 13 incidents of alleged mishandling of the Koran by joint task force personnel; 10 of those by a guard and three of those by interrogators. We found that in only five of those incidents, four by guards and one by an interrogator, there was what could be broadly defined as mishandling of a Koran.” General Jay Hood speaking yesterday at a Pentagon press conference.