Legal Gag on Bush-Blair War Row

[dogday]

The attorney general last night threatened newspapers with the Official Secrets Act if they revealed the contents of a document allegedly relating to a dispute between Tony Blair and George Bush over the conduct of military operations in Iraq.

It is believed to be the first time the Blair government has threatened newspapers in this way. Though it has obtained court injunctions against newspapers, the government has never prosecuted editors for publishing the contents of leaked documents, including highly sensitive ones about the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.

The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, last night referred editors to newspaper reports yesterday that described the contents of a memo purporting to be at the centre of charges against two men under the secrets act.

Under the front-page headline "Bush plot to bomb his ally", the Daily Mirror reported that the US president last year planned to attack the Arabic television station al-Jazeera, which has its headquarters in Doha, the capital of Qatar, where US and British bombers were based.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0316-06.htm

What is Official Secrets Act and don't you believe this is exactly what the USA is trying to do now?

[dipsydoodle]

1. Been around since 1911

and was then revised late eighties. There are lots of links : this is just one
http://www.cfoi.org.uk/osareform.html

I think the article to which you refered concerned a plan to paint a plane in United Nations colours to bomb al Jazeera's building.

[liveoaktx]

2. In case you missed it, from Democracy Now-WHY Blair wants

to stifle this. http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/22/1434210

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051219/scahill - It was the very next day after Rumsfeld held a press conference calling the Fallujah photos propaganda, etc, that Bush told Blair he wanted to bomb Al Jazeera. It was not a joke, and Bush/Blair want to make sure this doesn't get out to the public because it shows Bush is a monster.

[dipsydoodle]

3. Also

it don't quite always work : http://cndyorks.gn.apc.org/yspace/articles/gchq_whistleblower_cleared.htm

From memory her defence was going to be based on necessity i.e prevention of a greater crime. The case was dropped like a brick.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Strangely, the Guardian printed this last November

but Common Dreams has put it out with a date of March 16 this year. Weird.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1648590,00.html

On edit: the latest news I can find was that Al Jazeera filed a Freedom of Information Act request, on behalf of 2 British citizens in Qatar (who I presume work for Al Jazeera) in January, saying the possibility of conspiracy to injure them overrides government confidentiality. The BBC noted this, and this blog recorded it. This was after an earlier FOIA request from another blogger, who basically got the reply "yes, the memo exists, but it's too embarrassing to Bush for us to give it to you".