Al-Jazeera Seeks Answers Over 'bombing' Memo

By Dominic Timms

Arabic TV news channel al-Jazeera has called on the US and UK governments to provide a "good explanation" for comments allegedly made by George Bush about a plan to bomb its Qatar headquarters.

The comments, which surfaced in a leaked memo, alleged that the American president considered bombing al-Jazeera's offices in Doha, the capital of Qatar, at the height of last year's Iraqi insurgency in Falluja.

Al-Jazeera said it was still investigating the validity of the memo and whether Mr Bush was serious about his alleged comments or not, but warned that if they were credible it was a "bad day" for news organisations worldwide.

"We are still investigating the credibility and the contents of the document and in the absence of comment from Downing Street we are slightly cautious," said al-Jazeera's London bureau chief, Yofri Fouda.

"We certainly hope it's not true, but if it turns out to be true it would be horrific and bad news not only for al-Jazeera but for every news organisation around the world.

"We hope Downing Street or the White House comes up with a good explanation - either denying the memo exists or, if it is true, that the president was at least joking."

Mr Fouda said if details about the alleged memo - covered in a story in yesterday's Daily Mirror - were correct, it would throw into question US explanations about attacks on al-Jazeera's offices in Kabul and Baghdad in 2001 and 2003.

"It will cast even more doubt on the circumstances surrounding previous incidents," he said.

The channel's London bureau chief said al-Jazeera wrote to the Pentagon at the start of the 2003 Iraq war detailing the locations of its offices in an official letter.

"Our Doha office is a one-storey building located in the middle of nowhere. It would be incredibly easy to knock out," he added.

Both the US and UK government's declined to comment on the allegations.

"We are not going to dignify something so outlandish with a response," a White House official said.

A Downing Street spokesman said: "We have got nothing to say about this story. We don't comment on leaked documents."

The alleged threat by Mr Bush to take "military action" against the broadcaster's Qatar headquarters was contained in a leaked memo, which surfaced in the Daily Mirror yesterday.

Quoting unnamed sources, the paper claimed the US president was "deadly serious" about the plan, which he allegedly talked about at a face-to-face meeting withTony Blair in April last year, but backed down after pressure from the UK prime minister.

The US has long criticised al-Jazeera. During the Iraq war of 2003, the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, accused the broadcaster of "consistently lying" and "working in concert with terrorists".