WASHINGTON, 19 October 2003 — A senior Pentagon official under fire for his comments about Islam said Friday that he never intended to denigrate the Muslim faith, and is not a “zealot or an extremist.”
In his first comments on the controversy, Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin, deputy assistant secretary for intelligence, said that his earlier statements had been misconstrued. He said he did not believe that the Bush administration’s “war on terrorism” was a conflict between Christianity and Islam.
“For those who have been offended, I offer a sincere apology,” he said in a statement.
A highly decorated Special Operations specialist and born-again Christian, Boykin has spoken about his faith and Islam in a series of appearances before Christian groups. The comments, first reported this week by the Los Angeles Times and NBC, appeared to undermine President Bush’s arguments that the American anti-terror effort is not aimed at Islam.
Last year, for example, relating how he had fought a Somali warlord, Boykin told an audience: “My God was bigger than his . . . I knew that my God was a real God and that his was an idol.”
In another speech, he said some Muslims hated the United States “because we’re a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian . . . and the enemy is a guy called Satan.”
Boykin also told a gathering that Bush was in the White House although “the majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? He’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.”
But Boykin said Friday that he had been misunderstood.
When he spoke of the Somali warlord, he did not mean that the Somali’s God was Islam, but rather “his worship of money and power — idolatry.” Boykin said he did believe that “radical extremists have sought to use Islam as a cause of attacks on America.”
As for his statement that God had installed Bush in the White House, Boykin said he meant that God had done the same for “Bill Clinton and other presidents.”
Though he defended his comments, Boykin has told others at the Pentagon that he will stop making speeches to religious groups and will try to tone down his remarks on the sensitive subject of religion.
