Newsweek:Blair Didn't Think Al-Jazeera Threat a Joke

[kpete]

Newsweek:Blair didn't think Al-Jazeera threat a joke

The Case of the Secret Memo
The White House denies plans to bomb Al-Jazeera. But a warning sent out to British newspaper editors has given the controversy a fresh twist.

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 5:44 p.m. ET Nov. 30, 2005

Bush administration officials initially dismissed the memo’s allegations about Bush’s threat against Al-Jazeera as “outlandish.” U.S. officials later suggested that if Bush did talk with Blair about bombing Al-Jazeera, the president was only joking. Asked directly today about Bush's purported threat to bomb Al-Jazeera, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said: "Any such notion that we would engage in that kind of activity is just absurd." McLellan did not respond to follow-up questions as to whether Bush actually said what the memo says he did.

But a senior official at 10 Downing Street, Blair’s official residence, who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, recently seemed to give credence to the Al-Jazeera threat. The official told NEWSWEEK London Bureau chief Stryker McGuire: "I don't think Tony Blair thought it was a joke."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10269701/site/newsweek/from/RSS/

[mod mom]

1. Were the other two al-Jazeera hits jokes as well?