Bush's Mad Plans To Bomb Aljazeera TV In Qatar

[Hardrock69]

ThisIsLondon.com
11-22-5


There were calls for Downing Street to publish the transcript of a conversation between Tony Blair and US President George Bush, amid claims that the Prime Minister persuaded Mr Bush not to launch a military strike on a TV station in a friendly Arab state.

According to unnamed sources quoted in the Daily Mirror, the memo - stamped Top Secret - records Mr Bush suggesting that he might order the bombing of Al-Jazeera's studios in Qatar.

'Blair talked Bush out of bombing'

And it allegedly details how Mr Blair argued against an attack on the station's buildings in the business district of Doha, the capital city of Qatar, which is a key ally of the West in the Persian Gulf.

Al-Jazeera had sparked the anger of the US administration by broadcasting video messages from al Qaida head Osama bin Laden and leaders of the insurgency in Iraq, as well as showing footage of the bodies of US servicemen and Iraqi civilians killed in fighting.

According to the Mirror's source, the transcript records a conversation during Mr Blair's visit to the White House on April 16 last year, in the wake of a failed attempt to root out insurgents in the city of Fallujah, in which 30 US Marines died.

A spokesman for 10 Downing Street refused to discuss the leaked memo.

But former defence minister Peter Kilfoyle - a leading Labour opponent of the Iraq War - called for the document to be made public.

"I believe that Downing Street ought to publish this memo in the interests of transparency, given that much of the detail appears to be in the public domain," he told the Press Association.

"I think they ought to clarify what exactly happened on this occasion. If it was the case that President Bush wanted to bomb al-Jazeera in what is after all a friendly country, it speaks volumes and it raises questions about subsequent attacks that took place on the press that wasn't embedded with coalition forces."

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Sir Menzies Campbell told PA: "If true, then this underlines the desperation of the Bush administration as events in Iraq began to spiral out of control. On this occasion, the Prime Minister may have been successful in averting political disaster, but it shows how dangerous his relationship with President Bush has been."

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/PA_NEWA70168081132615588A00?source=PA%20Feed&ct=5

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/TGD/tgdBreakingNewsDisplay/0%2C%2C2%2C00.html#1

[Warham]

I know, it's your favorite media source, isn't it? ;)

[FORD]

Considering how many journalists have already been "accidentally" killed in this illegal war, this doesn't surprise me at all.

God help this country recover from what this fucking piece of shit has done to our nation's honor and reputation.

[Warham]

Yeah, we sure wouldn't want those terrorists to think poorly of us.

[FORD]

How about the Italians? One of their Secret Service agents was assassinated in an attempt to kill a journalist who had the scoop on the Italian connection to the forged "Niger uranium" documents.

[Warham]

The French and Germans didn't like us before 2003, so they don't matter. Hussein was lining their pockets with green anyway.

[Baby's On Fire]

Originally posted by Warham
The French and Germans didn't like us before 2003, so they don't matter. Hussein was lining their pockets with green anyway.


Earth to WARHAM........NOBODY likes the United States Government anymore............Very few liked it in the first place. And people like you exemplify the reasons.

[LoungeMachine]

Shit, sorry for the dupe.

Had no idea HR69 had beat me to it.

[ELVIS]

I figured you must have seen this thread...

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by ELVIS
I figured you must have seen this thread...

Gimme a break.

I screw off 16 hours a day ;)

So many Bush Fuck-ups, only so many hours in the day.

I can't keep up with all of 'em. :D


Next we'll be reading about Cheney headlining a fundraiser for Hot Tub Tom DeLay..............:D

[LoungeMachine]

Huffington Post:
(11/22/05) by Jeremy Scahill



The U.S. military has killed more than a dozen journalists in Iraq and the Pentagon has ruled all of those that it has investigated either accidents or justified killings. Among the "mistakes" that Al- Jazeera has endured: the U.S. bombing of the network's Afghanistan offices in 2001, the killing of its Baghdad correspondent, Tareq Ayoub, by a U.S. missile during the siege of Baghdad in 2003 and the torture of several of its journalists in Iraq.

[ELVIS]

Is that good or bad ??

Hahaha...:D

[LoungeMachine]

Two appear in court over leaked Bush memo

Richard Norton-Taylor and Julia Day
Tuesday November 29, 2005


Two men appeared in court today charged with violating the Official Secrets Act over the leak of a document that reportedly detailed a private conversation between George Bush and Tony Blair where they allegedly discussed bombing al-Jazeera TV.
Former parliamentary researcher Leo O'Connor pleaded not guilty to "receiving a document through its disclosure without lawful authority from a crown servant".

David Keogh, a former cabinet office communications officer, did not make any plea. He is charged with "making a damaging disclosure of a document relating to international relations without lawful authority".

The offences are alleged to have taken place between April 16 and May 28 2004.

Speaking outside Bow Street magistrates court in London, Neil Clark, the lawyer defending Mr O'Connor, said his client was shocked when he learned he was to be prosecuted, more than a year after he was first arrested.

The charges are allegedly related to a memo of a conversation between Tony Blair and George Bush in April last year in the course of which the president is reported to have suggested bombing the headquarters in Qatar of the Arabic TV station al-Jazeera.

The two men were arrested in April 2004 but only charged on November 17 this year. Asked outside the court about the delay, Mr Clark yesterday pointed out that any prosecution under the secrets act needed the consent of the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith.

Prosecutor Rosemary Fernandes asked the court to remand the two men on bail on condition that they do not have any direct or indirect contact with each other and that neither leaves the country.

Mr O'Connor is a former parliamentary researcher for ex-Labour MP Tony Clarke and allegedly gave the memo to his former boss. Mr Clarke says he returned it to Downing Street.

The pair will reappear at Bow Street on January 10 for a committal hearing.

The Daily Mirror, citing unidentified sources, claimed the document reveals that Mr Blair argued against Mr Bush's suggestion of bombing al-Jazeera's headquarters in Doha, Qatar. The newspaper said its sources disagreed over whether it was a serious suggestion.

In a written parliamentary question, last week, Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price asked Mr Blair "what information you received on action that the United States administration proposed to take against the al-Jazeera television channel".

The prime minister replied: "None."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the newspaper's claims "outlandish and inconceivable".

The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith has warned media outlets not to publish the memo's contents, citing the Official Secrets Act.






FUNNY THING IS, TEAM BUSH WENT PUBLIC CLAIMING THIS WAS BULLSHIT, SO HOW CAN THEY BE CHARGED WITH LEAKING A MEMO THAT DOESNT EXIST ACCORDING TO THE WHITE[WASH] HOUSE?

[Warham]

Originally posted by Baby's On Fire
Earth to WARHAM........NOBODY likes the United States Government anymore............Very few liked it in the first place. And people like you exemplify the reasons.

Good. Fuck off. ;)

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by Warham
The French and Germans didn't like us before 2003, so they don't matter. Hussein was lining their pockets with green anyway.

Yeah, just don't leave out the fact that the FRENCH sent a substantial number of troops to AFGHANSTAN...

And plenty of Americans wallets were filled with IRAQI dough. I guess it was okay to deal with the devil before he tried to take our oil in 1990...

[larbo]

Aljazeera should have been bombed a long time ago. All their anti-american bullshit has been tolerated long enough. Also, piss on France & Germany. These are a bunch of ungrateful COWARDS.

[franksters]

Originally posted by larbo
Aljazeera should have been bombed a long time ago. All their anti-american bullshit has been tolerated long enough. Also, piss on France & Germany. These are a bunch of ungrateful COWARDS.

Shut the fuck up lobo tardo. don't ruin the thread, asshole.

[larbo]

Take your OWN advice, Fartsters. & quit stalking me everytime I post. I already told you I'm not gay so fuck off! Ford & Nickpdiddyfresh might be Interested though..........

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by larbo
Take your OWN advice, Fartsters. & quit stalking me everytime I post. I already told you I'm not gay so fuck off! Ford & Nickpdiddyfresh might be Interested though..........

Well, why don't you put in your false teeth and go down to the recruiters tough guy? They'll take anybody these days, even half-wit internet trolls that expose themselves in public to relatives and farm animals...

[larbo]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Well, why don't you put in your false teeth and go down to the recruiters tough guy? They'll take anybody these days, even half-wit internet trolls that expose themselves in public to relatives and farm animals...


Most people on the frontline are from W.Va. dipshit! Why? 'Cause they want the fucking job to get done. Ask Sarge. I have all of my teeth as do most people here, unlike little crack-head city wiggers! Also, fag, there IS more cousin lovin' going on in New York than there will ever be in W.VA.. Furthermore, Not that it's any of your fucking buisiness, I already pulled my tour the first war, little boy.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by larbo
Most people on the frontline are from W.Va. dipshit! Why? 'Cause they want the fucking job to get done.

Or they're expendable toothless cannon fodder...


Ask Sarge.

Why would I ask him?


I have all of my teeth as do most people here, unlike little crack-head city wiggers! Also, fag, there IS more cousin lovin' going on in New York than there will ever be in W.VA>

Wow, so defensive about the teeth thing...

Are you conducting the cousin-humper survey or something?

[Cathedral]

I don't see the point in bombing Al-Jazeera. if you wage war on a media source that would have some terrible consequences as that news reverbarates around the world.
Then you'll have 10 Al-Jazeera's popping up in its place making the situation much much worse.

It's not smart or necessary at all.

[FORD]

Hey Burbank Bitchboy...

Shut your cocksucker and keep your sheet wearing ass out of this forum, you little racist bitch.

[FORD]

http://www.sms.at/community/talkbox/i/T/3-11403503-gay_black_jewish_klansman.jpg

[franksters]

Originally posted by larbo
Take your OWN advice, Fartsters. & quit stalking me everytime I post. I already told you I'm not gay so fuck off! Ford & Nickpdiddyfresh might be Interested though..........

I told you before you're done in here, you will never move freely...

I feel sorry for your mom.

[Nickdfresh]

November 30, 2005

2 Britons Accused in Leak of Bush-Al Jazeera Memo
The document said the president had proposed to Blair in 2004 that the Arab TV channel be bombed, a newspaper reported this month.

By John Daniszewski, Times Staff Writer

LONDON — Two men appeared in court Tuesday accused of mishandling official secrets in connection with a memo that, according to a newspaper account, showed President Bush had proposed bombing the Arab news channel Al Jazeera and was talked out of it by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

When the Daily Mirror published its account Nov. 22, the White House dismissed it as ludicrous. "We are not going to dignify something so outlandish with a response," a White House official said at the time.

But officials of Qatar-based Al Jazeera, the Arab world's most influential satellite news channel, regard the denial as evasive. The station's general director has been in London this week seeking a clarification from Blair and asking that the memo be made public.

At the same time, prosecutors have said that if the Mirror and other newspapers publish the contents of the memo, they too could be liable under Britain's Official Secrets Act, which forbids publication of confidential government information. Newspapers have accused the government of trying to gag them to save the U.S. president from embarrassment.

According to published descriptions, the secret five-page memo is a detailed account of conversations between Bush and Blair in April 2004, when the war in Iraq had entered a particularly heated phase. It allegedly was passed in May or June 2004 from a Cabinet employee, David Keogh, to a staff member of a Parliament member.

The Parliament member, Anthony Clarke, found the memo in his office and returned it to the government, but not, apparently, before some people outside the government became familiar with its contents. Clarke, a member of Blair's Labor Party, has since left Parliament.

Keogh, a former communications officer, and Leo O'Connor, a researcher for Clarke, appeared in court Tuesday.

The charge against Keogh was a "damaging disclosure of a document" relating to international relations, while O'Connor was accused of receiving a document from a civil servant.

O'Connor pleaded not guilty; Keogh did not enter a plea. A lawyer for O'Connor told reporters that his client was surprised and "very disappointed" to have been charged. The case was adjourned until Jan. 10.

Al Jazeera General Director Waddah Khanfar said White House and Downing Street statements about the memo so far "do not satisfy anyone, especially Al Jazeera … and journalists all over the world…. They are going to increase the doubts and the speculations."

Khanfar said he was not assuming that the Mirror's original report was true, but said that it deserved to be cleared up.

"I actually suspend any judgment until we know exactly the truth behind it," he said. "We have not received any official denial, neither an official confirmation. This is why we are here, in order to find out the whole truth about this document."

Since the Mirror article appeared, there have been suggestions that even if Bush and Blair had discussed military action against Al Jazeera, Bush must not have been serious.

Kevin Maguire, who co-wrote the Mirror article, said that his source, who was familiar with the document, had no doubt that Bush was serious. Maguire said he himself had not seen the document and therefore was keeping an open mind.

"I … could be convinced in future that perhaps Bush just said something in a fury and never intended it that way, although the prime minister didn't interpret it that way," Maguire said.

Even though Al Jazeera is hugely popular in the Arab world and is situated in the capital of a country friendly to the United States, it frequently has been accused of having an anti-Western agenda, and of allowing itself to be used by Al Qaeda to spread the terrorist network's views.

Founded in 1996 and largely funded by the emir of Qatar, the news channel denies that it is for or against any government. Its reports and discussion shows have raised hackles in many Arab countries as well as the United States, its advocates point out.

In 2001, its office in Kabul, Afghanistan, was struck by a U.S. bomb, and in 2003, one of its correspondents in Baghdad was killed in a bombing. In both cases, U.S. officials denied that the channel had been targeted.

Link (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-jazeera30nov30,0,1317995.story?track=tottext)

Janet Stobart of The Times' London Bureau contributed to this report.