Blair talked Bush out of bombing al-Jazeera: report

Blair talked Bush out of bombing al-Jazeera: report

Agence France Presse, Tue Nov 22, 2:39 AM ET

LONDON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush planned to bomb pan-Arab television broadcaster al-Jazeera, British newspaper the Daily Mirror said, citing a Downing
Street memo marked "Top Secret".

The five-page transcript of a conversation between Bush and British
Prime Minister Tony Blair reveals that Blair talked Bush out of launching a military
strike on the station, unnamed sources told the daily which is against
the war in Iraq.

The transcript of the pair's talks during Blair's April 16, 2004 visit
to Washington allegedly shows Bush wanted to attack the satellite
channel's headquarters.

Blair allegedly feared such a strike, in the business district of Doha,
the capital of Qatar, a key western ally in the Persian Gulf, would
spark revenge attacks.

The Mirror quoted an unnamed British government official as saying
Bush's threat was "humorous, not serious".

Al-Jazeera's perspectives on the war in Iraq have drawn criticism from
Washington since the US-led March 2003 invasion.

The station has broadcast messages from Al-Qaeda terror network chief
Osama bin Laden and the beheadings of Western hostages by insurgents in
Iraq, as well as footage of dead coalition servicemen and Iraqi
civilians killed in fighting.

A source told the Mirror: "The memo is explosive and hugely damaging to
Bush.

"He made clear he wanted to bomb al-Jazeera in Qatar and elsewhere.
Blair replied that would cause a big problem.

"There's no doubt what Bush wanted to do -- and no doubt Blair didn't
want him to do it."

Another source said: "Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair. That much
is absolutely clear from the language used by both men."

A spokesman for Blair's Downing Street office said: "We have got nothing
to say about this story. We don't comment on leaked documents."

The Mirror said the memo turned up in the office of then British
lawmaker Tony Clarke, a member of Blair's Labour Party, in May 2004.

Civil servant David Keogh, 49, is accused under the Official Secrets Act
of handing it to Clarke's former researcher Leo O'Connor, 42. Both are
bailed to appear at Bow Street Magistrates Court in central London next
week.

Clarke returned the memo to Downing Street. He said O'Connor had behaved
"pefectly correctly".

He told Britain's domestic Press Association news agency that O'Connor
had done "exactly the right thing" in bringing it to his attention.

The Mirror said such a strike would have been "the most spectacular
foreign policy disaster since the Iraq war itself."

The newspaper said that the memo "casts fresh doubt on claims that other
attacks on al-Jazeera were accidents". It cited the 2001 direct hit on
the channel's Kabul office.

Blair's former defence minister Peter Kilfoyle challenged Downing Street
to publish the transcript.

"I hope the prime minister insists this memo be published," he told the
Mirror.

"It gives an insight into the mindset of those whe were architects of
the war."