The UK civil servant who leaked the memo that Bush wanted to bomb Al-Jazeera’s offices in Qutar has been arrested under Britain’s Offical Secrets Act, as reported here by MsNBC:
LONDON – A civil servant has been charged under Britain’s Official Secrets Act for allegedly leaking a government memo that a newspaper said Tuesday suggested that Prime Minister Tony Blair persuaded President Bush not to bomb the Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera.
The Daily Mirror reported that Bush spoke of targeting Al-Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar, when he met Blair at the White House on April 16, 2004. The Bush administration has regularly accused Al-Jazeera of being nothing more than a mouthpiece for anti-American sentiments.
The Daily Mirror attributed its information to unidentified sources. One source, said to be in the government, was quoted as saying that the alleged threat was “humorous, not serious,” but the newspaper quoted another source as saying that “Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair.”
As to the authenticity of the information in the memo, that Bush wanted to target Al-Jazeera, we received the usual non-denial denials yesterday from the White House and 10 Downing Street:
“We are not interested in dignifying something so outlandish and inconceivable with a response,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan told The Associated Press in an e-mail.
Blair’s office declined to comment on the report, stressing it never discussed leaked documents.
I don’t know about you, but whenever someone in this Administration says “I won’t dignify that with a comment” bells ring in my head, and a little dialogue bubble pops up with the word GOTCHA! in it. I guess the war on Terror now identifies both whistleblowers and the media as their principle enemies. They certainly seem to have forgotten about Osama bin Laden.
