Daily Mirror

Shock War Advice to Blair

By Rosa Prince

12 October 2006

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.

Asked about the controversial attack, Mr Blunkett says: "I think there's a big difference between taking out the transmission and taking out journalists - even if you don't agree with them.

"I don't know whether it was a mistake or not, but I wouldn't call it legitimacy."

Last year, the Mirror exposed a leaked memo detailing discussions between Mr Blair and President George Bush in which the Prime Minister appeared to talk the US leader out of bombing al-Jazeera's headquarters in Qatar.

Mr Blunkett resigned from the Cabinet twice - after the fast-tracking of a visa for his lover's nanny and over a share deal.

A report published in the US yesterday said the war had claimed around 655,000 Iraqi lives - about 2.5 per cent of the population.

The death toll is three times the normal rate.

Episode one of The Blunkett Tapes will be screened on Channel 4 at 9pm tonight. Episode two will be at 8pm next Monday.

'I don't think that there are targets in war you can rule out because you don't have military personnel inside'