The Daily Mirror yesterday published details from a transcript of a meeting in which Blair talked with Bush to persuade him not to bomb the offices of Al-Jazeera in Dohar. This has been publicised in the US blogs including BT.
The record of the talks is alleged to the subject of a prosecution under the Official Secrets Act but the meeting’s existence has been vigorously denied by the White House. Now the UK Attorney General has threatened newspaper editors under the Act if they reveal details of the document.
The Guardian explains the basis of the threatened prosecutions and the background to the document:
Under section 5 it is an offence to have come into the possession of government information, or a document from a crown servant, if that person discloses it without lawful authority. The prosecution has to prove the disclosure was damaging.
The Mirror said the memo turned up in May last year at the constituency office of the former Labour MP for Northampton South, Tony Clarke. Last week, Leo O’Connor, a former researcher for Mr Clarke, was charged with receiving a document under section 5 of the act. David Keogh, a former Foreign Office official seconded to the Cabinet Office, was charged last week with making a “damaging disclosure of a document relating to international relations”. Mr Keogh, 49, is accused of sending the document to Mr O’Connor, 42, between April 16 and May 28 2004.
Mr Clarke said yesterday that Mr O’Connor “did the right thing” by drawing the document to his attention. Mr Clarke, an anti-war MP who lost his seat at the last election, returned the document to the government. “As well as an MP, I am a special constable,” he said.
Both men were released on police bail last Thursday to appear at Bow Street magistrates court on November 29. When they were charged, newspapers reported that the memo contained a transcript of a discussion between Mr Blair and Mr Bush.
The conversation was understood to have taken place during a meeting in the US. It is believed to reveal that Mr Blair disagreed with Mr Bush about aspects of the Iraq war. There was widespread comment at the time that the British government was angry about US military tactics there, particularly in the city of Falluja.
The BBC website quotes a White House spokeperson commenting on the allegation that Bush had to be disuaded from bombing a friendly nation in the Middle East:
“We are not going to dignify something so outlandish with a response.”
Unfortunately for the White House, the A-G’s threat to prosecute newspapers if they reveal further details of the document rather undermines their position. If the Blair-Bush allegation is not part of the secret document for which Keogh and O’Connor were charged, the threat to prosecute editors is moot. The only way they could be prosecuted would be if the document did indeed contain the transcript of the meeting in which Blair disuaded Bush from his planned attack.