Blair: no information US planned to bomb Al Jazeera

released?

It nourishes the grass roots, no doubt......

Of course there was something nasty and incriminating in those memos; otherwise, they would not have stalled and would have released the memo.

I assume these two think the rest of the world is saddled with a short term memory of nanoseconds.

He didn't say that it wasn't discussed, right?

I have kids who split hairs finer than this, so maybe I'm reading something into this that's not there. But since I don't believe a word old Tony says, I doubt it.

Decent, honest and trustworthy government, here and in the UK, has been replaced with semantics. But lately, the Whats-in-a-Name Game eventually leads to the Blame Game .. and Tony's next.

(despite cutting short his committed time in the service).

... Bush & Blair, were causing death and global unrest, THEIR ACTIONS OF LATE WOULD BE DOWNRIGHT HILARIOUS!

All of this treatening to imprison journalists under the Official Secrets Act, we are now to believe, was prompted by a document that contains absolutely no damning evidence?

Methinks there is yet another pile o' shit that is about to become familiarized with the proverbial fan.

'Al Jazeera is da bomb'. This has all been a misunderstanding."

With quick thinking like that, you should apply for Scotty McC's job!
:rofl:

I actually feel bad for that guy. I can't believe he hasn't gone stark raving mad yet. Glad you liked my joke though!

... Scottie Boy hasn't been seen for some nineteen days now. Maybe he's already gone stark raving mad!

That it's not true.

answer. According to the news accounts Bush spoke about this to Blair in a meeting the two had at the White House, so Blair didn't receive information, he was right there. The conversation at the meeting was supposedly written down by someone in attendance and that is how the memo came about. Blair is an old sidewinder just like Bush.

...and nor have any of clan Shrub (how dare they have used the name Zapata¿?).

Nevertheless, one still (maybe only temporarily) enjoys the freedom to be able to read intertextually.

Nous ne sommes pas tous le monde cretinizé.

ed. just google, eg. "rumsfeld al jazeera"
or cheney al jajeera (or al-jazeerah) - note variant lexicography.
or bush - same
or sharon - same, etc.

Read ...and see this DU thread here (follow links): http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2278389

ed: improved link.

the pressure. Looks like Tony is taking some dancing lessons from Bob the Termite Woodward.

"...he had received no information suggesting the United States planned to bomb the Al-Jazeera television network."

A few possibilities:

"had received no information" - i.e. Bush didn't share precise information on the plan - targeting, type of explosives, etc.

"suggesting the United States" - i.e. the entire United States wasn't in on the bombing. Or, the plan was more than just a suggestion.

"planned to bomb" - i.e. It may have been a missile strike, not a "bomb"

"the Al-Jazeera television network" - i.e. no plan to destroy the entire network, just a building that housed some of it.

there was no "plan" - very similar to *Co's statement regarding the 9/11 attack - that he would have done anything to stop the attack if he had just known when, where and how it was going to occur.

That's why these two need to be in a court where the maxim "truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth" would apply. They are such weasels that it makes real weasels cringe.

wanted to do so.

:grr:

from the April 16th 2004 (time of Falluja massacre new Sharon plan, etc.) Bush-Blair press 'conference' or 'briefing':

http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/31514.htm

<snip>

PRESIDENT BUSH: Mr. Prime Minister, thank you, sir. We will take three questions a side, and so why don't you ask one question to each of us.

You can start, Mr. Hunt.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, did you ask Secretary Rumsfeld to draw up war plans against Iraq in November, 2001, just as the military action was getting underway in Afghanistan? Why couldn't Iraq wait?

And Mr. Prime Minister --

PRESIDENT BUSH: No, I thought -- one question apiece. Not one question or one question apiece.

You know, I can't remember exact dates that far back. I do know this, that at a key meeting at Camp David, the subject of Iraq -- this was on September the --

Q Fifteenth.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Fifteenth. We had been attacked on September the 11th, obviously. On the 15th, we sat down, I sat down with my national security team to discuss the response, and the subject of Iraq came up. And I said as plainly as I possibly could, we'll focus on Afghanistan. That's where we'll focus. I explained this to the Prime Minister, as well, in a subsequent meeting. That was about the 20th of September, I think, we came and talked about the response we were going to take in dealing with the attacks on our country.

So I don't remember in times of -- what was being developed or not being developed. But I do know that it was Afghanistan that was on my mind. And I didn't really start focusing on Iraq until later on, particularly about the time I started going to the United Nations with this message. To the United Nations, I said, let's uphold the demands of the world, finally, after decades of -- after a decade of threats to Saddam -- you know, if you don't do this, this will happen -- why don't we finally just say something that we mean?

And it was at that point in time, when a President steps up in front of the United Nations and you say, either take care of business or we, others will, you better mean it. And I meant it when I went up in front of the United Nations at that point in time.

Q I was asking you about November.

PRESIDENT BUSH: I can't remember. I'd have to get back to you about a specific moment. But I can tell you, in September, I said, let us focus on Afghanistan, let us make sure that we do this job and do it well.

<snip>

PRESIDENT BUSH: One final point on this -- thank you, April, for bringing it up. Transitional administrative law that had been written is a -- this is an historic document. And it's a wonderful opportunity. It is for the people of Iraq to say, here's how civilized people must live. Here's how you protect minority rights. Here's how you protect the rights of religious people. And here's how civilized people should live if they're going to provide hope for the future.

And there doesn't seem to be much focus on that, what we call the TAL these days. And yet, it is a -- it is the cornerstone for what is going to be a free and hopeful society.

Go ahead, final question.

Q If I could just ask you about Iraq again. The fact of the matter is that weapons of mass destruction have not been found, that a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda has not been proved; and that the year on, troop numbers are going up, not coming down. So however determined you are to make a better Iraq, isn't the awkward fact for both of you that you misled your peoples in taking troops to war and shedding blood as a result?

PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: First of all, I just remind you that when, in November of 2002, we passed the United Nations resolution calling upon Saddam to comply fully with the United Nations inspectors, we did that on the basis of an understanding that wasn't confined simply to Great Britain and America, but was right across the hall of the Security Council, that Saddam Hussein was a threat -- and, indeed, it would difficult to conclude otherwise given that his was a regime that actually used chemical weapons, weapons of mass destruction against their own people.

And yes, a year on, we have faced some difficult times. We'll face difficult times again in the future. But one of the most interesting things to me is when I go and I actually talk to other leaders out in that region -- and some of them have got very difficult politics over this issue, as you all know, for very obvious reasons -- but I'm struck by how much more secure they feel with Saddam Hussein gone. And whatever their differences over the conflict, they know how important it is to their

region and their stability and, actually, their chance of changing their own country, that Iraq does become a stable and democratic state.

And this is one of these situations where -- you know, people often say to me, well is it -- is the world safer, given all the difficulty and violence that you have in Iraq? And I say to them, well, first of all, don't think that violence wasn't happening every day in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, it was. But, secondly, when you take on and you deal with these issues, yes, of course, you face difficult times. You're bound to have them. But the question is, is the aim and objective you're trying to secure one that if you do secure will make the world, indeed, safer and better. And that's why -- I find now, whatever the differences people have over the wisdom of the conflict -- and that's a debate that will go on, and go on for many, many years, no doubt; the historians can all pour over it -- but everybody should recognize the common interest today in making sure that Iraq achieves the aim that we have set out and that everybody of any sense in the international community supports, because if --

Q (Inaudible.)

PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: No, because I believe the important thing is to make the world more secure as a result of Saddam Hussein going, as a result of that threat, then, from Saddam and his regime, the threat that they carried out in their own region. I just listed for you two wars in which there were over a million casualties; hundreds of thousands of his own people killed.

Now, this is an historic struggle, and we're at a very, very crucial moment. And I think, for many, many people in Iraq, I think what the President said just a moment ago is absolutely right. Of course they're going to be sitting there asking, after all the decades of tyranny we've had, after all the promises that the international community gave us, and frankly let us down on, are these people going to stay the course?

And we are, and we want the international community to work with us in doing that. We're not setting aside the United Nations or that process at all. We're actually trying to work with the U.N. now, because everybody understands the importance of fulfilling that objective. And you just imagine an Iraq, stable and prosperous and democratic, and think of the signal that would send out. Think of the instant rebuttal of all that poisonous propaganda about America, about it all being an attack on Muslims or it being part of a war on civilization -- Iraq, run by the Iraqis, the wealth of that country owned by the Iraqis, and a symbol of hope and democracy in the Middle East.

Now, for me this is a cause that any person of good will and good heart should be able to support.

on anything anyway. Your crediability is zero.

Blair should release the minutes of his meeting with Bush if he has nothing to hide.

want to do it, and it sort of follows naturally that, after talking him out of doing it, there'd be no evidence of the US planning to attack, since he talked Bush out of doing it.