November 23, 2005
The Daily Mirror (UK)

Bush's Plot to Bomb Al-Jazeera

by Kevin Maguire and Andy Lines

PRESIDENT Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a "Top Secret" No 10 memo reveals.

But he was talked out of it at a White House summit by Tony Blair, who said it would provoke a worldwide backlash.

A source said: "There's no doubt what Bush wanted, and no doubt Blair didn't want him to do it." Al-Jazeera is accused by the US of fuelling the Iraqi insurgency.

The attack would have led to a massacre of innocents on the territory of a key ally, enraged the Middle East and almost certainly have sparked bloody retaliation.

A source said last night: "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." . . .

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Enver Masud, "FBI May Eliminate Dagestani Websites," The Wisdom Fund, September 9, 1999

Matt Wells, "Did the US mean to hit the Kabul offices of Al-Jazeera TV?," Guardian, November 19, 2001

Ilene R. Prusher, "In Volatile Iraq, US Curbs Press," Christian Science Monitor, June 19, 2003

"Iraq Evicts Reporters from Najaf," Associated Press, August 15, 2004

[Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and other Bush administration officials have complained heatedly to Qatari leaders that Al Jazeera's broadcasts have been inflammatory, misleading and occasionally false--Steven R. Weisman, "Under Pressure, Qatar May Sell Jazeera Station," New York Times, January 30, 2005]

Kevin Maguire, "LAW CHIEF GAGS THE MIRROR ON BUSH LEAK," Daily Mirror, November 23, 2005

Linda S. Heard, "Targeting Al Jazeera," CounterPunch, November 23, 2005

Boris Johnson, "I'll go to jail to print the truth about Bush and al-Jazeera," Telegraph, November 24, 2005

Robert Fisk, "No wonder al-Jazeera was a target," Independent, November 26, 2005

Jamie Doward, Antony Barnett, Peter Beaumont, David Rose and Mark Townsend, "The leak that revealed Bush's deep obsession with al-Jazeera ," Observer, November 27, 2005

[The military's effort to disseminate propaganda in the Iraqi media is taking place even as U.S. officials are vowing to promote democratic principles, political transparency and freedom of speech to a country emerging from decades of dictatorship and corruption. It comes as the State Department is training Iraqi reporters in basic journalism skills and Western media ethics, including one workshop titled "The Role of Press in a Democratic Society."--Mark Mazzetti and Borzou Daragahi, "US paying Iraqi press to run favourable stories," Los Angeles Times, November 30, 2005]

[Al-Jazeera's quest for answers has been met with silence from both the White House and Downing Street--Wadah Khanfar, "Why did you want to bomb me, Mr Bush and Mr Blair?," Guardian, December 1, 2005]

[Nothing puts the lie to the Bush Administration's absurd claim that it invaded Iraq to spread democracy throughout the Middle East more decisively than its ceaseless attacks on Al Jazeera, the institution that has done more than any other to break the stranglehold over information previously held by authoritarian forces, whether monarchs, military strongmen, occupiers or ayatollahs. The United States bombed its offices in Afghanistan in 2001, shelled the Basra hotel where Al Jazeera journalists were the only guests in April 2003, killed Iraq correspondent Tareq Ayoub a few days later in Baghdad and imprisoned several Al Jazeera reporters (including at Guant‡namo), some of whom say they were tortured. In addition to the military attacks, the US-backed Iraqi government banned the network from reporting in Iraq.--Jeremy Scahill, "The War on Al Jazeera," The Nation, December 1, 2005]

"US troops seize award-winning Iraqi journalist," Guardian, January 9, 2006

[Now the US, which maintains a large military base in Qatar, has adopted a more subtle approach to breaking the Arabs' voice of independence and diversity.--George Galloway, "The threat to al-Jazeera," Guardian, June 15, 2007]

[After more than six years as a prisoner of the United States, former TV cameraman Sami al-Hajj is back at work with Al-Jazeera, . . .

Al-Jazeera has also been hit twice by U.S. artillery fire. One shelling destroyed its Kabul bureau in November 2001. The second struck a Baghdad office in April 2003, killing correspondent Tareq Ayoub. . . .

Al-Hajj still bears the scars of some of his treatment, his lawyer said - a broken kneecap that was stomped on by guards at Bagram, and marks on his knees from being forced to kneel on cold concrete for long periods at Kandahar. U.S. military police at Kandahar also beat him regularly and pulled out the hairs of his beard one by one, Smith said.--Bob Egelko, "Journalist says U.S. target was Al-Jazeera," San Francisco Chronicle, August 17, 2008]

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