Posted on 11/23/2005 9:48:58 AM PST by indcons
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain has warned media organizations they are breaking the law if they publish details of a leaked document said to show U.S. President George W. Bush wanted to bomb Arabic television station Al Jazeera.
The government's top lawyer warned editors in a note after the Daily Mirror newspaper reported on Monday that a secret British government memo said British Prime Minister Tony Blair had talked Bush out of bombing the broadcaster in April last year.
Several British newspapers reported the attorney general's note on Tuesday and repeated the Mirror's allegations, which the White House said were "so outlandish" they did not merit a response. Blair's office declined to comment.
Al Jazeera, which has repeatedly denied U.S. accusations it sides with insurgents in Iraq, called on Britain and the United States to state quickly whether the report was accurate.
"If the report is correct then this would be both shocking and worrisome not only to Al Jazeera but to media organizations across the world," the Qatar-based station said in a statement.
The story would also be a shock for Qatar, a small Gulf state which cultivates good relations with Washington.
The Mirror said the memo came from Blair's Downing Street office and turned up in May last year at the local office of Tony Clarke, then a member of parliament for the town of Northampton. Clarke handed the document back to the government.
Leo O'Connor, who used to work for Clarke, and civil servant David Keogh were charged last Thursday under Britain's Official Secrets Act with making a "damaging disclosure of a document relating to international relations".
WHITE HOUSE SUMMIT
The Mirror said Bush told Blair at a White House summit on April 16 last year that he wanted to target Al Jazeera. The summit took place as U.S. forces in Iraq were launching a major assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah.
The paper quoted an unnamed government official suggesting Bush's threat was a joke but added another unidentified source saying the U.S. president was serious.
The attorney general told media that publishing the contents of a document which is known to have been unlawfully disclosed by a civil servant was a breach of the Official Secrets Act.
Kevin Maguire, the Mirror's associate editor, said government officials had given no indication of any legal problems with the story when contacted before publication.
"We were astonished, 24 hours later, to be threatened with the Official Secrets Act and to be requested to give various undertakings to avoid being injuncted," he told BBC radio.
Al Jazeera said that, if true, the story would raise serious doubts about the U.S. administration's version of previous incidents involving the station's journalists and offices.
In 2001, the station's Kabul office was hit by U.S. bombs and in 2003 Al Jazeera reporter Tareq Ayyoub was killed in a U.S. strike on its Baghdad office. The United States has denied deliberately targeting the station.
The claim was never even remotely believable.
I, for one, would have no problem w/ the bombing of Al Jazeera.
Since it's a satellite operation, why couldn't we arrange for the satellite to mysteriously malfunction?
Can I put my signature on the bomb? Pretty please!!
Riiiight.
Paging George Galloway. George Galloway to the green room please.
Hell, about 3/4 of this country think it is a good idea.
"If the report is correct then this would be both shocking and worrisome...
No.
If the report was correct monkeys would be flying out of my butt.
Oh, puleeze... "astonished"? You mean shocked that they weren't allowed to publish another false story?
"I don't think that we have accepted that, no."
You wanna explain how the British government can charge someone with leaking something that doesn't exist? That's going to be a fun day in court.
From what I recall of English law you don't actually have to have signed the Official Secrets Act to be bound by it.
"If the report is correct then this would be both shocking and worrisome not only to Al Jazeera but to media organizations across the world,"
"From what I recall of English law you don't actually have to have signed the Official Secrets Act to be bound by it."
Correct. The OSA applies to anyone. Obviously, normally I would not be in possession of any information that would be covered, but if Tony Blair comes to my house tonight and says 'here are the classified records of how Princess Di's murder was ordered by Prince Phillip and carried out by space aliens, keep them on the qt' I would most definately be infringing the OSA by passing them on.
good point
This "supposed" statement by Bush is probably something on the order of Reagan's statement, "the bombing begins in 5 minutes".
The media had a cow over that too.
I was asking within days of the start of the Iraq War why in the hell that propaganda operation was still being allowed to broadcast our troop positions and stir up the enemy. Their satellite uplink should've been taken out with the very first smart bomb. The idea that anyone in Britain would be "up in arms" over this just shows how many terrorist-appeasing quislings England has allowed itself (and especially its media) to become infested with.
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