The White House has apologized to the Iraqi government after a US soldier was found to have used a copy of the Koran for target practice. Last week, Iraqi police found a desecrated copy of the Muslim holy book at a small shooting range near Baghdad. The book was riddled with fourteen bullet holes and had graffiti inside the cover. On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said President Bush personally apologized to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino: “The President yesterday had a regularly scheduled secure video teleconference with Prime Minister Maliki. He opened the meeting — I believe it was either the first or the second issue that the President brought up — to tell Prime Minister Maliki he had heard about the incident where a Koran was desecrated, and he apologized for that, in the sense that he said that we take it very seriously, we were concerned about their reaction, we wanted them to know that the President knew that this was wrong and that the commanders in the field had publicly reprimanded the soldier and removed him from Iraq.”