Blair urged to come clean on bomb plan; MP calls for statement.

Byline: BY ANDREW WOODCOCK 

A LIVERPOOL MP has tabled a motion in Parliament calling on Tony Blair to publish the topsecret transcript of a discussion with George Bush in which the US President allegedly proposed bombing Arab TV station Al-Jazeera.

Attorney General Lord Goldsmith this week warned newspapers not to publish the contents of the memo, citing the Official Secrets Act.

But former defence minister Peter Kilfoyle yesterday said that the details of the conversation, which supposedly took place during the Prime Minister's visit to the White House in April 2004, should be put before the public.

In an early-day motion tabled in the House of Commons, Mr Kilfoyle said he was "appalled" by Mr Bush's reported comments and called on the Government to publish the transcript.

According to press reports, the transcript recorded Mr Blair attempting to persuade Mr Bush not to take military action against the Al-Jazeera HQ in the city of Doha, the capital of key Persian Gulf ally Qatar.

The White House has dismissed reports of the conversation as "outlandish".

Mr Blair's visit to the White House took place in the wake of a failed US attempt to root out insurgents in the city of Fallujah, during which 30 US Marines and an estimated 1,000 Iraqis died.

Mr Kilfoyle said he believed that plans for a further assault on Fallujah may have been discussed at the meeting, and his motion voices concern at Mr Blair's failure to restrain the attack, which eventually took place in November last year.

The Liverpool Walton MP told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "I am calling for the publication of the record, which we know exists, of a meeting in April 2004 in which George Bush allegedly called for the bombing of the Al-Jazeera HQ in Qatar and which also discussed the launch of the assault on Fallujah, which I find a very important issue, particularly related to the British attempts at restraint.

"I would hope we can have a fair and full discussion of the very important issues that were discussed at that meeting.

"This is not about national security. It is about political embarrassment.

"The information is out there in the public domain and it seems ludicrous that the media can't discuss it in its entirety

CAPTION(S):

US Senator Joseph Lieberman dines with American soldiers at a Thanksgiving Day dinner at a training facility in Baghdad; Peter Kilfoyle