LAW CHIEF GAGS THE MIRROR ON BUSH LEAK By Kevin Maguire
THE Daily Mirror was yesterday told not to publish further details from a top secret memo, which revealed that President Bush wanted to bomb an Arab TV station.
The gag by the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith came nearly 24 hours after the Mirror informed Downing Street of its intention to reveal how Tony Blair talked Bush out of attacking satellite station al-Jazeera's HQ in friendly Qatar.
No 10 did nothing to stop us publishing our front page exclusive yesterday.
But the Attorney General warned that publication of any further details from the document would be a breach of the Official Secrets Act.
He threatened an immediate High Court injunction unless the Mirror confirmed it would not publish further details. We have essentially agreed to comply.
Editors are threatened over TV station bombing claim By Rosemary Bennett and Tim Reid
NEWSPAPERS editors were threatened with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act last night if they published details of a conversation between Tony Blair and George Bush in which the President is alleged to have suggested bombing al-Jazeera, the Arab news network. Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, informed newspapers editors including that of The Times that “publication of a document that has been unlawfully disclosed by a Crown servant could be in breach of Section 5 of the Official Secrets Act.”
The Blair Government has obtained court injunctions against newspapers before but it has never prosecuted editors for publishing the contents of leaked documents.
Under a front-page headline “Bush plot to bomb his ally” in the Daily Mirror yesterday, a secret minute of the conversation in April 2004 records the President allegedly suggesting that he would like to bomb the channel’s studios in Doha, capital of Qatar. Richard Wallace, the Editor of the Daily Mirror, said last night: “We made No 10 fully aware of the intention to publish and were given ‘no comment’ officially or unofficially. Suddenly 24 hours later we are threatened under Section 5.”
According to the Mirror, the transcript turned up in the office of former Labour MP Tony Clarke, who lost his Northampton South seat in May.
His former researcher and a Cabinet Office official, accused of breaking the Official Secrets Act, will appear at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court.
Downing Street refused to comment on the matter yesterday, saying that it was sub judice.
Last night Peter Kilfoyle, the Labour MP for Liverpool Walton and a former Defence Minister, tabled an early day motion urging Mr Blair to publish the conversation. He said that what Mr Bush said was a “matter of great interest” to MPs and the public.
You said it Kilfoyle -- and to the American public, too... Just what is in that memorandum? Those must be some pretty damning conversations between Bush and Blair, and no telling which man they're more damaging to. There are really only two choices here: either the memos prove that Bush did indeed mention bombing Al-Jazeera (either for real or in jest, either of which would burn like hellfire thorugh the Arab world) or he didn't but he and Blair discussed things in their April 2004 meeting that are equally, or even more, damaging.
Normally I'd say nobody could be dumb enough to hatch such a plan, but I've long since stopped bothering to lower the bar with this war planning crowd. The bar has officially hit the floor.
Update: The timing of the supposed Bush-Blair convo is interesting: "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." Wasn't this the same assault where U.S. forces allegedly dropped white phosphorus as a munition? If one thing is clear, it's that Fallujah was the Alamo, the Fort Sumpter, the Waterloo ... the turning point for this war, for the Iraqi insurgents and for us. Losing Fallujah the first time, and having to try and retake it belatedly after yanking our Marines out, might have been the moment we began to lose Iraq.
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%>
Tell a friend
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dim email, sendmail
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dim url
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url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
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%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
