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.

http://www.counterpunch.org/heard11232005.html

"The gag by the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith" the same attorney general who changed his pre-Iraq War legal opinion after being badgered by US government lawyers to do so "came nearly 24 hours after the Mirror informed Downing Street of its intention to reveal how Tony Blair talked Bush out of attacking satellite station Al Jazeera's HQ in friendly Qatar" in the spring of 2004.

Imagine that the free world's top dog ostensibly out to promote democracy, freedom and 'our way of life' - whatever that is - wants to bomb an independent television station on the soil of one of its closest allies, owned by the ruler of that allied country.

What are the implications for journalists that refuse to toe the coalition line? What about free speech and freedom of the press issues?

But the most worrying question is this: If the alleged bombing of Al Jazeera had gone ahead, with consequent deaths and injuries, wouldn't this equate the US administration with the terrorism it purports to hate?

Excuse the repetition but I would like to stress that Al Jazeera is owned by an ally of the US and staffed with respected editors and journalists from around the world, including many who formerly worked for the BBC.

These people are not terrorists or insurgents; they are not uniformed military or intelligence personnel. They are simply people trying to tell it like it is in an environment plagued by censorship, and judging by Al Jazeera's 50 million regular viewers and the ire they provoke from regional governments, they are doing something right.

The White House has characterized the Mirror's reporting as "outlandish", but if that's the case, one wonders why Downing Street has gone into crisis mode not only prosecuting two of its own civil servants David Keogh and Leo O'Connor under the Official Secrets Act but also threatening editors of British newspapers with prosecution an historical first according to Richard Taylor-Norton of the Guardian.

So while Bush is attempting to brush off the incident, the British government is appearing more as though it has its hand in the cookie jar with damage control its first priority.

When asked to comment on the memo Downing Street refused to do so saying it doesn't commented on leaked documents. Be that as it may - and provided the Mirror story is false - then, surely, an absolute denial by the Prime Minister would put the story to bed and quash the rumors.