Bomb those journo scum!
Bush plotted to bomb al-Jazeera -- report
LONDON -- US President George W. Bush planned to bomb pan-Arab television broadcaster al-Jazeera, British newspaper the Daily Mirror said Tuesday, 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 anti-war-in-Iraq daily.
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."
If this was a jokey comment by Dubya, that would be clear from the memo, which both the White House and No.10 refuse to allow to be published.
Al-Jazeera's perspectives on the war in Iraq have drawn criticism from Washington since the US-led March 2003 invasion.
One Al-Jazeera journalist is held in Gitmo, where he's come under pressure to say that the station is funded by Al Qaeda, which he naturally refuses to do.
Al-Jazeera's offices in both Kabul and Baghdad were bombed by US aircraft.
The UK is threatening the first ever prosecution of a journo or editor under the Official Secrets Act. The leakers will be prosecuted under the OSA.