Outlandish claim that Bush is a terrorist

The trial began in London on Wednesday of two men accused of leaking a secret memo on the Iraq war in which U.S. President George W. Bush is reported to have threatened to bomb Arabic TV station Al Jazeera.

Prosecutors told the court the Britons, a civil servant and a political researcher, leaked the memo detailing "highly sensitive" talks between Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the White House on April 16, 2004, because they opposed the Iraq war.

The Daily Mirror reported in November 2005 that the memo quoted Bush as saying he wanted to bomb Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite broadcaster whose coverage of Iraq's insurgency had angered U.S. officials.

The Mirror quoted an unnamed government official as suggesting Bush's threat was a joke, but cited another unidentified source as saying Bush was serious. It said Blair had talked Bush out of the idea.

The White House has described the Mirror report as "outlandish" and Blair's spokesman last year denied allegations about the contents of the memo. Link


db: Not so outlandish; In 2001 Al-Jazeera's Kabul office was destroyed by US bombs. On 8 April 2003 Al-Jazeera's Tariq Ayoub [pic above] was killed when US bombs struck its Baghdad office.