Al Jazeera bombing memo
The Al Jazeera bombing memo is an unpublished and unverified memorandum made within the British government which is said to be the minutes of a discussion between United States President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The Daily Mirror published a story on its front page on 22 November 2005 that said the memo quotes Bush speculating about a US bombing raid on Al Jazeera's world headquarters in the Qatari capital Doha and other locations.
[1] The five-page memorandum is said by the Mirror[1] to be a record of the meeting between the two leaders which took place on 16 April 2004 at the height of Operation Vigilant Resolve, an assault on Fallujah by U.S. Marines and Iraqi security forces.
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."
"[8] David Keogh, a civil servant at the Cabinet Office, and Leo O'Connor, a research assistant to former Labour MP Tony Clarke, were charged respectively under Section 3 and 5 of the Official Secrets Act 1989[9] for the unauthorised disclosure of the memo.
[12] Boris Johnson, then Conservative MP for Henley, editor of The Spectator and a supporter of the war, has stated that he will publish the memorandum if he receives a copy of it in the hope it will put speculation about what Bush may or may not have actually said to rest.
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.
[22] This incident, which occurred during the U.S. assault on Baghdad and after criticism of Al Jazeera's coverage from those supportive of the war aims of the United States forces, gave rise to suspicions that the network had been targeted.
