Today, Andrew Tyrie, a British Member of Parliament and a conservative (Tory), shared his views with Democracy Now!‘s Amy Goodman about the “the Downing Street memo that the Blair government has forbid any newspaper in Britain to print, that allegedly involves a report that Tony Blair dissuaded President Bush from following through on bombing Al Jazeera headquarters in Doha in Qatar.” Tyrie replied:
AMY GOODMAN: [A]re you encouraging a newspaper to defy the Blair government and actually print this memo?
ANDREW TYRIE: Well, that’s a matter — I mean, there’s a good number of editors, who have made newspapers in Britain, sitting on it, I expect, and that will be a decision for them.My view is that this information should be in the public domain. It’s an example for those of us who believe in maximum freedom that we can get on such things that in the information age, to a great extent, the rules of discovery and obtaining information in the United States can assist us here in Britain, and vice versa. And that’s all to the good. …
About the idea of bombing Al Jazeera’s Qatar headquarters, Mr. Tyrie said:
ANDREW TYRIE: Well, if it’s true, it reflects, I think, quite badly on the American administration, frankly, that there should be just this another example of a colossal misjudgment. I mean, can you think of anything more calculated to stir up moderate Muslim opinion than to go and bomb Al Jazeera? This is meant to be the leader of the democratic world.
The sadness is that for someone like myself, who is an absolutely cut and dried Atlanticist, for whom the alliance with the United States is the bedrock of everything I believe in, as far as defending my country is concerned, and with so many shared values, the irony is that we could be undermining the very values that we’re telling other countries that they should adopt. We’re undermining the values we’re seeking to export by some of the actions we are taking. And that’s just one example, if it’s true. As for the specifics of the memo, I am a freedom man, and I’m a freedom of information man. And clearly, a document like that should be put into the public domain, and that should happen immediately.
Tyrie, who is chairman of the All Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition, was interviewed primarily about his views on rendition and human rights issues.
With luck, and a courageous editor in the UK, we may get to see those documents.
