Al Jazeera bombing memo
The Al Jazeera bombing memo is an unpublished memorandum made within the
Details of the memo
The five-page memorandum is said by the Mirror
The White House dismissed the allegations made in the article.[4] Given that Qatar is an ally of the United States and the United Kingdom in the Iraq War, many commentators speculated that even if the reports of the memorandum were accurate, they may simply have been recording a statement which the President did not intend to be taken seriously. A White House official told CNN "We are not going to dignify something so outlandish with a response," and a Pentagon official called the Daily Mirror report "absolutely absurd".[5] A BBC News correspondent has suggested that if President Bush did indeed make the comments they were intended as "some kind of joke."[6]
Writing in The Independent on 28 November Andreas Whittam Smith countered, observing that "official note takers don't normally record jokes". He also pointed to the alleged leaker's "25 years' experience of tough postings in place such as Islamabad and Khartoum, ... often involved in intelligence work" and concluded that he "must have felt exceptionally troubled by what he was seeing."[7]
According to a report in The Daily Telegraph: "People who have seen the document say the real reason that it is being suppressed by the Government is because it contains a potentially damaging private discussion between the two leaders about the controversial United States attack on the Iraqi city of Fallujah last year." The report also stated that, when questioned about the matter at the Commonwealth conference in Malta, Blair branded the claims a "conspiracy theory."[8]
Official secrets and UK publication ban
The trial judge in 2005 made an order under Section 11 of the Contempt Of Court Act 1981, banning in perpetuity any connection in the UK media between the trial and Al Jazeera. "Any journalist will have to ensure in his own mind that they are not making an impermissible link", he said. There have been no U.K. reports linking the trial and remarks by David Blunkett on Channel 4 stating that "taking out" Al-Jazeera was discussed in a conversation with Tony Blair at the start of the Iraq war. [14] Reporters Without Borders condemned the ban.[15]
In an appeal against the ban, lodged by a group of UK Media companies, the Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips partly lifted the ban. The UK media will now be able to repeat previously published allegations, but it will still be illegal to suggest that these allegations accurately represented evidence given in secret during the trial. It will also be illegal to print a particular phrase uttered in open court by Keogh when he was asked about the document.[16]
Previous U.S. bombings of Al Jazeera offices
Al Jazeera's offices have previously been hit by United States weaponry. On 13 November 2001 a U.S. missile hit Al Jazeera's office in Kabul, Afghanistan, during the U.S. invasion of that country. Although no Al Jazeera staff were hurt in the attack, the building was destroyed and some employees' homes were damaged. At the time, Mohammed Jasim al-Ali, managing editor, said that the coordinates of the office were well known to everyone including the Americans.[17]
When former British Home Secretary David Blunkett published his memoirs in late 2006, it was revealed he had advised Prime Minister Tony Blair in late March 2003 to bomb the Al Jazeera television transmitter in Baghdad. "There wasn't a worry from me because I believed that this was a war and in a war you wouldn't allow the broadcast to continue taking place", Blunkett said.[18][19][20]
On 8 April 2003 a U.S. missile hit an electricity generator at Al Jazeera's office in Baghdad. The resulting fire killed reporter
Frank Gaffney published an opinion piece on 29 September 2003 calling for Al Jazeera to be "taken down" "one way or another" because it constitutes "enemy media".[23][24]
See also
References
- ^ The Daily Mirror. Archived from the originalon 28 November 2005.
- ^ Scahill, Jeremy (23 November 2005). "Did Bush Really Want to Bomb Al Jazeera?". The Nation Magazine. Archived from the original on 19 May 2007.
- ^ Goodman, Amy; Mason, Daniel (3 February 2006). "In Doha...The Story Behind the Other Downing Street Memo Where Bush Told Blair He Wanted to Bomb Al Jazeera". Democracy Now!. Archived from the original on 24 July 2012.
- ^ Barr, Robert (22 November 2005). "Report: Bush Talked of Bombing Al-Jazeera". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 25 August 2012.
- ^ "'Bomb Jazeera' memo: Media warned". CNN. 24 November 2005. Archived from the original on 26 November 2005.
- ^ "Bush al-Jazeera 'plot' dismissed". BBC News. 22 November 2005. Archived from the original on 29 November 2005.
- ^ Whittam Smith, Andreas (28 November 2005). "Secrets, lies and war crimes". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 9 May 2006.
- ^ Kite, Melissa (27 November 2005). "Bush plot to bomb al-Jazeera is a conspiracy theory, says Blair". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 17 October 2007.
- ^ Evans, Michael (24 April 2007). "Secrets leak civil servant opposed Iraq war". The Times. London. Archived from the original on 12 June 2011.
- ^ Bennett, Rosemary; Reid, Tim (23 November 2005). "Editors are threatened over TV station bombing claim". The Times. London. Archived from the original on 13 January 2008.
- ^ Wald, Jonathan (29 November 2005). "'Jazeera bomb' leak: 2 in UK court". CNN.com. Archived from the original on 15 September 2020.
- ^ "Secrets-leaker handed prison term". Reuters. UK. 10 May 2007. Archived from the original on 9 June 2009.
- ^ Johnson, Boris (24 November 2005). "Bush and Al-Jazeera". boris-johnson.com. Archived from the original on 12 March 2006.
- ^ Pollard, William (13 July 2007). "U.K. Media Appeal Reporting Ban". OhmyNews. Archived from the original on 19 June 2009.
- ^ "Unacceptable meddling in news media by Bush-Blair memo trial judge". Reports Without Borders. UK. 21 May 2007. Archived from the original on 13 July 2007.
- ^ Norton-Taylor, Richard (31 July 2007). "Appeal court quashes media gag over White House meeting". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 19 May 2019.
- ^ "Al-Jazeera Kabul offices hit in US raid". BBC News. 13 November 2001. Archived from the original on 26 August 2011.
- ^ Marsden, Chris (26 October 2006). "Former British home secretary admits calling for bombing of Al-Jazeera". Asian Tribune. Archived from the original on 15 December 2018.
- ^ Tamimi, Azzam (25 October 2006). "Al-Jazeera, a media revolution". Comment is free. Archived from the original on 28 November 2006 – via The Guardian.
- ^ "Al-Jazeera mulls legal action over Blunkett's comments". DNA India. AFP. 19 October 2006. Archived from the original on 15 March 2016.
- ^ "Al-Jazeera 'hit by missile'". BBC News. 8 April 2003. Archived from the original on 12 January 2009.
- ^ Fisk, Robert (26 April 2003). "Did the U.S. murder these journalists?". San Francisco Bay Guardian. Archived from the original on 27 May 2006.
- ^ Gaffney, Frank Jr. (29 September 2003). "Take Out Al Jazeera". Fox News. Archived from the original on 27 April 2006.
- ^ Schmeltzer, Eric (29 November 2005). "Neocons Floated Idea of Bombing Al Jazeera Before". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 3 December 2005.
Further reading
- Wallis, William; Khalaf, Roula (23 November 2005). "Qatar shock at al-Jazeera bombing report". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 27 November 2005.
- Jenkins, Simon (27 November 2005). "Blair's slow, embarrassing death by a thousand leaks". The Times Online. London. Retrieved 27 November 2005.
- Regan, Tom (23 November 2005). "British paper: Bush wanted to bomb Al Jazeera". The Christian Science Monitor. Archived from the original on 26 November 2005.
- Percy, Karen (28 November 2005). "Al Jazeera wants answers over alleged US bomb plot". The World Today (text transcript, audio recording). ABC Radio. Retrieved 28 November 2005.
External links
- White House Press Briefing Transcript of questions on memo, 30 November.
- Bush Plot to Bomb His Arab Ally - original story by the British The Daily Mirror(online), by Kevin Maguire and Andy Lines, containing specific information from the memo.
- Media gagged over Al Jazeera memo - IFEX