UK bomb memo

There is a story floating around about "another" memo out of the British government that was reported in Britain's Daily Mirror. It claims that a top secret British government document recorded a conversation in Washington between President Bush and Tony Blair in April 2004 in which President Bush discussed bombing the headquarters of Al Jazeera in Doha, Qatar. When I first read the story it sound a little fishy to say the least and I considered it trash. However, it's been picked up and reported in the Washington Post and NY Times. Now it's been learned that The UK has charged two British civil servants for leaking the memo. So apparently the memo does exist. The UK government is now threatening to prosecute editors who reveal details of the memo the Guardian reports. From the Washington Post In Washington, a senior diplomat said the Bush remark as recounted in the newspaper "sounds like one of the president's one-liners that is meant as a joke." But, the diplomat said, "it was foolish for someone to write it down, and now it will be a story for days." "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. Al-Jazeera has frequently aired recorded statements from al Qaeda figures. Bush administration officials have contended that through that type of broadcasting the network often serves as a conduit for terrorist propaganda. From Al-Jazeera "We sincerely urge both the White House and Downing Street to challenge the Daily Mirror report and in the event that the memo is found to be accurate it would be incumbent on them to explain their positions on statements regarding the deliberate targeting of journalists and news organizations," Aljazeera said. In April 2003, an Aljazeera journalist died when its Baghdad office was struck during a US bombing campaign. In November 2001, Aljazeera's office in Kabul, Afghanistan, was destroyed by a US missile, although no staff were in the office at the time. It seems like the memo does exist. Was Bush playing cowboy again and joking around, maybe, but who knows? Without seeing the memo no one knows. One thing is for sure it won't play well in the Arab world, especially when two offices of Al-Jazeera were bombed....... by mistake.