[Article]'Bomb al-Jazeera' memo leak puts pressure on Bush-Blair

Victor

Given that they have charged two people with leaking the document (or is it "a document"), aren't they essentially saying its true?

True that Bush would contemplate bombing civilians in a friendly country, simply because they caused Bush "frustration".

Separately, there is the argument that this would be "legitimate" under information warfare, but that would be treading dangerously over the line.

http://www.thepost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=WORLD-qqqs=news-qqqid=9964-qqqx=1.asp

‘Bomb al-Jazeera’ memo leak puts pressure on Bush-Blair

27 November 2005 By Dave Sambrook

Wadah Khanfar, director general of Arabian television station al-Jazeera, is seeking an urgent meeting with British prime minister Tony Blair. He wants to discuss last week's report in the Mirror newspaper that US president George Bush had suggested bombing the satellite channel's headquarters.

Bush allegedly made the suggestion during a face-to-face meeting between the two leaders at the White House in April last year.

Last Tuesday's publication of the leaked memo led the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, to warn the editor of the Mirror and other British newspapers that “publication of a document that has been unlawfully disclosed by a Crown servant'‘ could be a breach of the Official Secrets Act.

In the days following Goldsmith's warning, newspapers and opposition MPs have claimed the attorney general's actions were more to do with protecting the US president from embarrassment than Britain's national security.

They have called on the government to clear up any doubt by releasing the memo in full.

The Mirror's report, which carried the headline “Bush plot to bomb al-Jazeera'‘, claimed that Bush made the suggestion during a meeting that coincided with the controversial battle against insurgents in Falluja.

The president's frustration over al-Jazeera's reports from behind rebel lines, which included graphic images of military and civilian fatalities, purportedly led him to come up with the plan.

The report went on to say that it was only the influence of Blair, who strongly opposed the idea, which dissuaded Bush from going ahead with the bombing. An unnamed source, who had seen the memo, dismissed a government official's suggestion that the president was “humorous, not serious'‘, claiming: “Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair. That much is absolutely clear from the language used by both men.”

“We are not going to dignify something so outlandish with a response,” a Bush administration official said. There have even been suggestions in Washington that the memo was a fake.

The British government maintained that its policy was not to comment on leaks. It added that this case was sub judice, as a cabinet office civil servant and the former staffer of a Labour MP face charges under the Official Secrets Act in respect of the leaked memo.

Both men have been bailed to appear in court next week.

If Bush was joking, it is a gaff potentially even more damaging than Ronald Reagan's 1984 off-the-record announcement that: “I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”

Since the Arabic news channel was established in 1996, and particularly since it rose to global prominence by airing videos of Osama bin Laden after the attacks of September 11, the White House has criticised al-Jazeera for having an anti-American bias. It claimed its reports were inciting the insurgency in Iraq as well as terrorist attacks around the globe. In April 2003, a US missile hit al-Jazeera's Baghdad office, killing a journalist, Tarek Ayoub, in what the US State Department described as a mistake. In November 2002, the news channel's office in Kabul, Afghanistan, was destroyed by a US missile after US officials said they believed the building was a terrorist site.

Last Thursday, workers at the alleged target location, al-Jazeera's headquarters in Doha, Qatar, held a protest demanding an investigation into the reports. They held pictures of Ayoub and Sami al-Haj, a colleague imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. “Leaving things vague is terrifying,” said Ahmed el-Sheik, al-Jazeera's editor-in-chief. “The British government has to explain - was it a serious talk or was it a joke?”

Ironically, if the memo were to confirm that Bush was serious about attacking al-Jazeera and that Blair was able to talk him out of it, it would undermine many of Blair's critics who claim he has no influence with the president.

The British ambassador to Washington before the Iraq war, Sir Christopher Meyer, claimed in his memoirs that Blair and his team were “seduced by the proximity and glamour of American power'‘ and couldn't tell Bush that “he would be unable to support a war unless British wishes were met'‘.

Despite the potential fillip for Blair, it is unlikely that the government will release the memo. They are worried that, even if Bush's comments were in jest, the embarrassment it would cause the president may damage the relationship between the two countries and make diplomacy impossible.

Given Blair's difficulties over the war with the British national broadcaster, it was jokingly suggested on last Thursday night's BBC Question Time programme that Blair might not have been quite so persuasive had Bush's plans included an attack on the BBC's headquarters in London.

democrates

Victor wrote:

Given that they have charged two people with leaking the document (or is it "a document"), aren't they essentially saying its true?

True that Bush would contemplate bombing civilians in a friendly country, simply because they caused Bush "frustration".

Separately, there is the argument that this would be "legitimate" under information warfare, but that would be treading dangerously over the line.

Looks like the leak was a catch-22. Do nothing and risk further leaks, potentially more damaging, but to do something removes the chance of the story fading quickly, unless they drop the case quietly on a day when some other story swamps the headlines.

Information warfare is an interesting angle on Al-Jazeera, the US assertion that they are 'Anti-American' is predictable, they are of course anti-U.S. foreign policy, but also their articles are peppered with a lot of strong rhetoric. On the one hand they have the right to express their opinions, but this reporting style can only inflame regional tensions and provide extremists with recruitment material. Further, it dilutes the wider impact of their reports as the perception of subjectivity casts doubt on their factual validity.

That said, it seems the original raw material is being provided weekly by external actors in the region. Even so, Al-Jazeera might do better to tone down the rhetoric and stick to BBC-style objectivity.

Hobbes

democrates wrote:

but also their articles are peppered with a lot of strong rhetoric. On the one hand they have the right to express their opinions, but this reporting style can only inflame regional tensions and provide extremists with recruitment material. Further, it dilutes the wider impact of their reports as the perception of subjectivity casts doubt on their factual validity.

Funny, you could of said the exact same about Fox News.

AJ is a reporting another side of the news. Unlike other news stations they do list sources because they know they will be in trouble if they didn't (compare that with US papers that can be libel or have "unnamed sources").

Its about as balanced your going to get in the middle east for a paper and doesn't win any friends in the middle east either. Although Bush allegely planning to bomb them and then having thier offices in Afganistan+Iraq *accidently* bombed I am sure is going to give more credibility to them.

democrates

Hobbes wrote:

Funny, you could of said the exact same about Fox News.

AJ is a reporting another side of the news. Unlike other news stations they do list sources because they know they will be in trouble if they didn't (compare that with US papers that can be libel or have "unnamed sources").

Its about as balanced your going to get in the middle east for a paper and doesn't win any friends in the middle east either. Although Bush allegely planning to bomb them and then having thier offices in Afganistan+Iraq *accidently* bombed I am sure is going to give more credibility to them.

Fair point, seems a bit much on the face of it to hold them to a higher standard than privately-controlled western media, but at the same time just because others are doing wrong should not be a good argument to immitate.
Maybe their approach is about winning angry hearts and minds in order to bring them in from the extreme and expose them to moderate news while they have the attention. It's a fine line to tread, not enough blame game rhetoric and they'll be rejected by extremists, too much and they fuel extemism.

bonkey

democrates wrote:

Fair point, seems a bit much on the face of it to hold them to a higher standard than privately-controlled western media, but at the same time just because others are doing wrong should not be a good argument to immitate.

Indeed. We, the public, should demand an equally high standard from all.

What would be hypocritical though, would be censuring foreign media simply for possessing the same flaws that national media exhibit, while not addressing said flaws in national media.

jc