White House: Quran Burning Endangers Troops

The White House says an American church's threat to burn copies of the Muslim holy book could endanger U.S. troops serving overseas, and the State Department denounced the plan as "un-American."

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs says that type of activity gets transmitted back to places like Afghanistan, where U.S. forces could be put in harm's way. The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, says the images of a burning Quran would be used by extremists to incite violence.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley called a Florida church's threat to burn copies of the Quran to mark the Sept. 11 attacks "un-American" and said the plan was "inconsistent with the values of religious tolerance and religious freedom."