New evidence clears up whether Bush sought to bomb al-Jazeera. But we are not allowed to hear it

On the left column of this blog you will notice a badge bearing the legend, "I'll publish the al Jazeera memo".

The al Jazeera memo is a report which claims that Bush planned to bomb the Al Jazeera world headquarters in the Qatari capital of Doha and at other locations, and purportedly gives us Blair's reaction to Bush's plans. Blair moved swiftly to prevent us from hearing details of this conversation after it was revealed by the British Daily Mirror:

Britain's Daily Mirror published an explosive story riddled with implications concerning the character and intent of the US president when pursuing his so-called 'war on terror', and perhaps, shedding light on the bombing of Al Jazeera's offices in both Kabul and Baghdad.

Twenty-four later, the Mirror and all other British papers had been subjected to a "gag order" under Section 5 the Official Secrets Act at pain of prosecution.

Blair is so determined to keep this document from the public's gaze that he has threatened to jail anyone who publishes it. Hence the reason a group of bloggers have got together promising to publish it if it falls into their hands.

If the claims that Bush did indeed plan to do this are true, then we would have Bush caught in the act of planning a war crime. We would also have a legitimate reason to question whether or not other al Jazeera stations were bombed accidentally.

The British government are currently prosecuting two individuals over the leaking of this memo.

David Keogh, a former civil servant, is charged with unlawfully disclosing the memo. Leo O'Connor, a former Labour researcher, is charged with disclosing a classified document.

What is stunning is that this trial is taking place in secret.

The way the government obtained this secret trial is disturbing to say the least.

Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Blair's foreign-policy adviser, who was present at the Washington meeting, told government lawyers that the disclosure of the memo "could have a serious impact upon the international relations" of the UK, and was likely to have damaged the "promotion or protection" of British interests, including those of British citizens in Iraq.

Sheinwald signed a certificate necessary to persuade the judge that the trial should be held in secret before Keogh and O'Connor were charged at the end of last year. We now know that, soon after the men were charged, government prosecutors requested an adjournment of the pre-trial hearings until April 2006. They said they needed a certificate from the foreign secretary. Two weeks later Margaret Beckett replaced Jack Straw. In June she signed the required certificate. The government has not explained why Straw failed to sign one when he was foreign secretary.

Beckett claims that the disclosure of the memo would be as harmful now as when it was first drawn up: disclosure would have a "serious negative impact on UK/US diplomatic relations. The ultimate consequence ... would be a substantial risk of harm to national security." Beckett continues: "My assessment is that this risk is of such magnitude to outweigh the interest of open public justice."

Firstly, I note that Straw chose not to sign the required certificate and that, shortly afterwards, he was removed from his position - a demotion which was, at the time, largely rumoured to be something that was being done at the request of the US.

Then there are the astonishing comments regarding the memo by the judge presiding over the case:

The contents of the memo would be read "throughout the world", he warns - a prospect, it seems, too awful to contemplate. There would be "different views on the implications of what was stated" in the memo. "It is reasonable to conclude," he warns, that some individuals, parts of the media, and "even some states", might react "very unfavourably" to the memo's contents. This might be "for no other reason than the topic under discussion was US/UK policy concerning the state of Iraq at a delicate time". And he comes with a trump card. He says: "It is also legitimate, in my view, for the court to bear in mind the ever-present threat to national safety which is posed by the possibility of terrorist acts by extremists in the UK."

Not content with hoisting the flag of the terror threat, the judge says that, had he not agreed to a private trial, the government might have dropped the case and in future would be reluctant to prosecute at all in "this type of case".

The government are going to extraordinary lengths to prevent us from ever knowing the contents of that memo, and one can be rightly sceptical about the dangers it is supposed to hold for issues of national security. It sounds rather more like an attempt to protect President Bush from embarrassment.

If President Bush - a man who claims to want to export democracy and all it's inherent freedoms (including freedom of the press) - was really planning to bomb an Arab TV station in a friendly country for no other reason than he didn't like the message they were transmitting, then he deserves to be embarrassed. It is a shocking hypocrisy.

But what is more shocking is that British justice should be turned on it's head to prevent us from ever hearing just exactly what it was that Bush wanted to do to al Jazeera.

This is another glaring example of how the war on terror and the risks of terrorist attacks are being used as a smoke screen to prevent us from shining a light on to what our governments are actually doing in our names.

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tag: Bush, Jack, Straw, Iraq, Iraq war, Tony, Blair, al Jazeera, memo, David Keogh, Leo O'Connor, secret, trial, Margaret, Beckett,