Senior British civil servant David Keogh. a former communications and cipher officer at Number 10 Downing Street, is on trial at London's Old Bailey, charged with violating the Official Secrets Act for leaking a classified report on an April 2004 meeting between George W. Bush and Tony Blair. The four page report referred to Bush as a "madman." Keough is accused of slipping the report to parliamentary assistant Leo O'Connor, who then allegedly made it available to anti-war MP Anthony Clarke. O'Connor is also on trial for violating the Official Secrets Act. The Blair government accuses Keough of leaking the document to influence the 2004 presidential elections, a clear indication that Blair was interested in seeing Bush defeat his Democratic challenger John Kerry.Alas, that's not quite how the BBC tells the story:
On Monday a statement by Mr O'Connor to police was read out in court, in which he said that the memo was a powerful document...Madsen would have us believe that "madman" was the secret assessment of the U.K. government, when that word actually seems to have originated with Keogh. There's a difference between the opinion of one man and the opinion of a government.
He said Mr Keogh wanted to get it into the public domain to influence elections about to take place in the United States.
Mr O'Connor told detectives Mr Keogh did not like President Bush.
The court heard that Mr O'Connor told police: "Something along the lines of 'The man's a madman' was said (by Mr Keogh).
"At the time it was the run-up to the American elections. I think his view was to get this document into this domain."
The BBC report does not describe the actual contents of the memo. Apparently, the text addresses the situation in Fallujah, and may refer to plans to arrest Moqtada al-Sadr.
1 comment:
I think Madsen is a disinformation agent at best. He takes stories and sensationalizes them to where real reporters won't touch them. His bullshit unfounded claim, which has made it around the world, that the new UN head is a moonie is an example.
Madsen does the world a diservice everytime he sits down to the computer.
Post a Comment