UK bloggers beating Fleet Street once again.... incredible work - and solid blogtage by the lads from Blair Watch.
From Blair Watch
We have had our suspicions (argued below) that the Times memo and the Mirror memo citing Bush’s plans to bomb al-Jazeera are entirely different documents confirmed by Peter Kilfoyle MP, who has seen both documents.
He was naturally reticent, but when we aked Peter if the source for the Mirror article was related to the ‘prosecution’ of and Keogh and O’Connor over last years leak to the Times he said:
Wholly different sources.
The Times used ‘official’ leaks; the current document remains top secret - they are livid it is out.
We have also had it confirmed that Keogh and O’Connor are only facing one set of charges, over one document.
If what was reported by the BBC prior to the Mirror story is correct; That Keogh and O’Connor are being prosecuted over the leak of the document ‘Iraq in The Medium Term’ as published in the Times [May 2004], and not for leaking the source of the Mirror article then Blair and his official spokesman would be leaving themselves wide open by describing the Mirror story as ’sub-judice’.
If the mirror is correct in it’s assertion that Keogh and O’Connor are being charged over the source of their story [the transcript], then the story reported by the BBC about them being charged over the leaking of ‘Iraq in the Medium Term’ memo was a construct, a ‘beard’ to cover up the existence of the document refered by the Mirror.
This means our government must have pre planned and disseminated the lie [or spin if you prefer]; that Keogh and O’connor were being prosecuted over the leaking of the ‘Iraq in the medium term’ memo.
Read the whole thing
everybody knows sums this up well.
My understanding of this
as a Yank who has had less of the story make its way here is that there are several key aspects.
#1. Blair issued a gag order on the British press preventing them from even discussing a memo that supposedly has as its contents Bush's desire to bomb an Al-Jazeera affiliate in a nation friendly with the US. Such gag orders are rare in Britain.
#2. The justification for the gag order was later given that there was an ongoing trial involving two ex-officials who leaked this document and they wanted to avoid tainting the trial. This rationale is common in Britain and ongoing trials are not discussed in the media. (Freedom of press is different there.)
#3. However, the trial has to do with an entirely different memo, that is, there are two memos. In this case, the gag order was probably only made to avoid considerable embarrassment over the contents of the "Al-Jazeera" memo.
#4. If you want everyone to talk about something, issue a gag order. Everyone wants to know the contents of the "Al-Jazeera" memo. The reasons they want to know vary from "How crazy is the US?" to "Let's embarrass Blair some more."
#5. The content of the "Al-Jazeera" memo may be much worse than just the bombing of Al-Jazeera.
This is my understanding. Those who have followed the story more closely please make corrections.
What is implied is that there is a wild-ass crazy memo out there exposing (further) the recklessness of Bush and the complicity of Blair. The ham-handed attempt to bat it down makes it even more interesting.