Al-Jazeera's Yousri Fouda speaks with Democracy Now! about the reported threat by Dubya to bomb al-Jazeera's headquarters in Doha, Qatar.

Some background: Al-Jazeera bureaus were hit by U.S. warplanes in Kabul, Afghanistan in November 2001 and in Baghdad, Iraq, in April 2003.

Here's the Nov. 22 BBC story about the case.

Here is part of what the Washington Post reported Wednesday:

In Washington, a senior diplomat said the Bush remark as recounted in the newspaper "sounds like one of the president's one-liners that is meant as a joke." But, the diplomat said, "it was foolish for someone to write it down, and now it will be a story for days."

"We are not interested in dignifying something so outlandish and inconceivable with a response," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told the Associated Press in an e-mail. ...

A former senior U.S. intelligence official said that it was clear the White House saw al-Jazeera as a problem, but that although the CIA's clandestine service came up with plans to counteract it, such as planting people on its staff, it never received permission to proceed. "Bombing in Qatar was never contemplated," the former official said. 

Bear in mind that although the White House calls it outlandish and inconceivable (Downing Street merely said it doesn't comment on linked documents), they didn't say it was a lie. And a civil servant and a political staffer have been charged under Britain's Official Secrets Act over the memo's leak.

In the UK, the National Union of Journalists is squawking about the Blair government's response. An excerpt from The Guardian:

The National Union of Journalists today accused the government of a "double attack on the freedom of the press and freedom of information" after it issued a reminder to editors about the provisions of the Official Secrets Act.

The attorney general threatened newspapers with the act and the Contempt of Court Act in the context of an allegedly leaked memo, relating to a dispute between Tony Blair and George Bush over the conduct of military operations in Iraq.

This intervention by the attorney general followed the publication of a front page story in the Daily Mirror yesterday under the headline "Bush plot to bomb his ally", in which the paper claimed the memo revealed that the US president last year planned to attack the Qatar headquarters of Arabic news broadcaster al-Jazeera.

"This is a heavy-handed attempt to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted. It is a double attack on the freedom of the press and freedom of information," said the NUJ secretary, Jeremy Dear.

The Daily Mirror has said it has "essentially agreed to comply."

And with all that out of the way, an excerpt from Democracy Now!:

AMY GOODMAN: What is your response to this report of the Downing – another Downing Street memo?

YOUSRI FOUDA: Well, obviously, we haven't seen the documents yet. There's still a case pending, and you have just mentioned the latest episode of events, which media have been just gagged from reporting any further on this story. I'm still hoping, to tell you the truth – we’ve been, what now, nearly 48 hours since this revelation, and we haven't yet seen anybody hit the roof in the White House or Downing Street, stepping out and saying, no, it's not true, or if it's true, that the President actually did not mean it. I'm still hoping at the bottom of my heart that this will happen.

AMY GOODMAN: You have been commenting for your network, Al Jazeera, on various talk shows since this was revealed yesterday. One of the people you were up against was arguing that it was right to attack Al Jazeera, saying it's state media.

YOUSRI FOUDA: Well, it's his opinion, and I wouldn't actually generalize that every American would like to murder journalists for reporting whatever they are reporting. Even if I begin to agree or accept any allegation against Al Jazeera, which I totally refute, I certainly -- no decent human being on earth would even begin to justify murdering journalists. And in the name of what? In the name of spreading freedom in our part of the world? I mean, you just can’t argue that you are trying to defend everything that Western civilization stands for, that you are trying to spread freedom and democracy in the Middle East, but in the process, you are actually doing exactly the opposite. You cannot argue for both things at the same time.

AMY GOODMAN: We're also joined on the telephone by British journalist and filmmaker, John Pilger, writes a column now for the New Statesman, used to be with the Daily Mirror. His latest film is called Stealing a Nation. Welcome to Democracy Now! again.

JOHN PILGER: Good morning.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Your response to this Downing Street memo, and the latest news. Washington Post: “A senior diplomat said the Bush remark as recounted in the newspaper sounds like one of the President's one-liners that's meant as a joke, but the diplomat said it was foolish for someone to write it down, and now it will be a story for days.” Two British civil servants now being indicted.

JOHN PILGER: Yeah, well, I don't think it's a one-liner. I just think they're minimizing, and I'm not at all surprised. I'm sure no one is surprised. I'm sure Al Jazeera isn’t surprised. After all, as you pointed out earlier on, the Americans clearly targeted Al Jazeera in Kabul and in Baghdad, killing one Al Jazeera journalist. They had been threatening Al Jazeera. It's part of U.S. policy to target the media. They – during the attack on Serbia in 1999, they targeted the headquarters of Yugoslav Broadcasting. The numbers of journalists who have been killed by American troops is higher than any time in the modern period. The media is terribly important to this whole disaster, and getting Al Jazeera, which has done an extraordinary job of bringing to millions of people, who otherwise would not have been informed about their own part of the world, bringing to them facts and information is very threatening to the United States and to Bush. ...

AMY GOODMAN: I'm sorry. I was just asking -- let me put this question to Yousri Fouda first, a senior investigative reporter at Al Jazeera. The latest news in the Washington Post of – saying that a former U.S. intelligence official saying that it was clear the White House saw Al Jazeera as a problem, that although the C.I.A.’s clandestine service came up with plans to counteract it, such as planting people on its staff, it never received permission to proceed. Your response to that, Yousri?

YOUSRI FOUDA: Well, I mean, any news organization is open to anybody to be planted into it. We – I mean, our address is actually meant to be – every news organization's address and every news organization's process is just out there. So, I would wouldn't be surprised that indeed that there are some people who might be working, whether paid or not paid, for this intelligence agency or the other. We are very transparent, and everybody knows this. I can hardly think of anyone who introduced themselves as a journalist or a researcher or somebody who is associated with a think tank requesting a visit to our headquarters in Doha and we turned them down. We are open. People come and go, and how would you know that somebody is not actually working for the C.I.A. or any other intelligence agency in the world? I don't think that this is the issue.

The issue is the way some people -- and I would this -- that some people within the U.S. administration view the world, that kind of arrogant attitude towards the world that we don't even need to even begin to explain ourselves is just outrageous. You know, when you take people for granted, when you think that, well, taking an easy target like journalists, unarmed human beings, just for, you know, for doing their job, just because they wanted to stay in the middle and not be with any side, like the President of the most powerful nation on earth said at one point, “You are either with us or against us.” Hello. I'm a journalist. My job is all about being in the middle.

So, it's – from that point of view, I just wonder, in light of what happened recently, I mean, this revelation about this document, how many people would have been recruited into the mindset of al-Qaeda because of something like this? I'm talking about mainstream Arabs and Muslims, and even decent human beings, wherever they come from, when they hear about something like this. So we have been hearing a lot about people in our part of the world, ‘They hate America and Americans.’ Well, they might do this, but they used to hate Americans for what they do, not for what they are. Now, with something like this, I wouldn't be surprised that Americans will be hated for what they are.

AMY GOODMAN: Yousri Fouda, what would you say to those people now, who have been charged, two British civil servants, for leaking this memo? And also what would you say to the British government, which has threatened the use of the Official Secrets Act to sue newspapers that publish the contents of this leaked memo, apparently now the Daily Mirror complying. Do you think that a news organization, perhaps even your own, Al Jazeera, should defy this? And then I'll put the question to John Pilger.

YOUSRI FOUDA: Well, the signs are not very encouraging. You know, again gagging – I understand from a legal point of view that there's a case going on, and we usually try and be a little bit more sensitive when there's a legal case taking place. So, I would refrain from commenting on the civil servants, because I might prejudice their case. But on the other hand, when you gag somebody, the story becomes sexier, and everybody develops even more interest into it. I have a personal experience with this myself, having interviewed a former MI5 officer who ran away and started talking about things, and British media were gagged. What happened? Because legally he could speak to non-British media, and then British media would take the story on. So, you go around things again. It's a very hypocritical approach. And that's what happened. I interviewed the guy, and every single media outlet in this country quoted my interview with him. So I don't think that it's really the best policy, but at the same time, I have a little bit of understanding because of the legal case. The ball is in the White House court, the bottom line of the issue is in the White House. I urge the White House to come out and say this did not happen, and if it did happen, the President was rather joking about it.