Skip to content or view screen version

Blunkett urged Blair to bomb al-Jazeera

Mirror | 12.10.2006 13:34 | Sheffield

Of course we already know that he is a war criminal, all the MPs in the Labour cabinet are because of their support for an illegal war of aggression against Iraq.

See also these article from when he resigned:

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2004/12/302880.html
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2004/12/303123.html

In the Mirror today they have this story: "BLUNKETT: WE MUST BOMB AL-JAZEERA TV, Shock war advice to Blair, By Rosa Prince" ... extracts follow:

DAVID Blunkett has admitted he urged Tony Blair to break international law and bomb al-Jazeera's Baghdad TV transmitter during the Iraq war.

The disgraced ex-Home Secretary makes his astonishing revelation in a Channel 4 Dispatches programme, to be shown next week, saying he viewed the Arab television station as a legitimate target.

He brushes aside protests that, as a civilian organisation, the bombing of al-Jazeera would have been illegal under international law.

Mr Blunkett tells Dispatches he suggested to the war cabinet that al-Jazeera's Baghdad transmitter be attacked.

Asked whether he was not worried that this would be "outside the rules of engagement", Mr Blunkett says: "There wasn't a worry from me because I believed that this was a war and in a war you wouldn't allow the broadcast to continue taking place."

Dispatches reporter Isabel Tang protests: "But al-Jazeera was a civilian target."

Mr Blunkett replies: "Well, I don't think that there are targets in a war that you can rule out because you don't actually have military personnel inside them if they are attempting to win a propaganda battle on behalf of your enemy."

Tang goes on: "But surely that's against international law." Mr Blunkett says: "Well I don't think for a minute in previous wars we'd have thought twice about ensuring that a propaganda mechanism on the soil of the country you were invading would actually continue being able to propagandise against you."

Two weeks after Mr Blunkett pressed the Prime Minister to attack al-Jazeera, the station's Baghdad offices were bombed by the Americans, killing journalist Tareq Ayoub.

Mirror
- Homepage: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_headline=blunkett%2D-we-must-bomb-al%2Djazeera-tv%26method=full%26objectid=17916312%26siteid=94762-name_page.html

Comments

Display the following 6 comments

  1. Bush plot to bomb al-Jazeera is a conspiracy theory, says Blair — memory hole
  2. Blunket & 'The Guardian' — Mark Barnsley
  3. Sick — Media A Legitimate Target?
  4. and of course — (A)
  5. its 'even worse ' when its westerners? is it? — hmmm
  6. Worse Thank Planning Is Doing — Oppose Neo-Fascism