The Blair Government caught with its pants down on intelligence dossier on Iraq
Britain's Channel 4 reports:
" The government's carefully co-ordinated propaganda offensive took an embarrassing hit tonight after Downing Street was accused of plagiarism. The target is an
intelligence dossier released on Monday and heralded by none other than Colin Powell at the UN yesterday.
On Monday, the day before the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell addressed the UN, Downing Street published its latest paper on Iraq. It gives the impression of being an up to the minute intelligence-based analysis – and Mr Powell was fulsome in his praise…. It outlines the structure of Saddam's intelligence organizations."
Channel Four News has learnt that the
bulk of the nineteen page document was copied from three different articles - one written by a graduate student.
It was copied from an article last September in a small journal: the
Middle East Review of International Affairs. It's author,
Ibrahim al-Marashi, a postgraduate student from Monterey in California.
Large sections do indeed appear, verbatim. A section, for example, six paragraphs long, on Saddam's Special Security Organisation, the exact same words are in the Californian student's paper.
Even typographic mistakes in the original articles are repeated. For example, of military intelligence, al-Marashi writes in his original paper:
"The head of military intelligence generally did not have to be a relative of Saddam's immediate family, nor a Tikriti. Saddam appointed, Sabir Abd Al-Aziz Al-Duri as head..." Note the comma after appointed. Downing Street paraphrases the first sentence:
"Saddam appointed, Sabir 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Duri as head during the 1991 Gulf War." This second line is cut and pasted, complete with the same grammatical error.
"In several places Downing Street edits the originals to make more sinister reading. A section, for example, six paragraphs long, on Saddam's Special Security Organisation, the exact same words are in the Californian student's paper. The dossier says the Mukhabarat - the main intelligence agency - is
"spying on foreign embassies in Iraq". The original reads:
"monitoring foreign embassies in Iraq."
A desperate effort by the Blair Government to go to war at any cost.
The Blair Government caught with its pants down on intelligence dossier on Iraq
Britain's Channel 4 reports:
" The government's carefully co-ordinated propaganda offensive took an embarrassing hit tonight after Downing Street was accused of plagiarism. The target is an
intelligence dossier released on Monday and heralded by none other than Colin Powell at the UN yesterday.
On Monday, the day before the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell addressed the UN, Downing Street published its latest paper on Iraq. It gives the impression of being an up to the minute intelligence-based analysis – and Mr Powell was fulsome in his praise…. It outlines the structure of Saddam's intelligence organizations."
Channel Four News has learnt that the
bulk of the nineteen page document was copied from three different articles - one written by a graduate student.
It was copied from an article last September in a small journal: the
Middle East Review of International Affairs. It's author,
Ibrahim al-Marashi, a postgraduate student from Monterey in California.
Large sections do indeed appear, verbatim. A section, for example, six paragraphs long, on Saddam's Special Security Organisation, the exact same words are in the Californian student's paper.
Even typographic mistakes in the original articles are repeated. For example, of military intelligence, al-Marashi writes in his original paper:
"The head of military intelligence generally did not have to be a relative of Saddam's immediate family, nor a Tikriti. Saddam appointed, Sabir Abd Al-Aziz Al-Duri as head..." Note the comma after appointed. Downing Street paraphrases the first sentence:
"Saddam appointed, Sabir 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Duri as head during the 1991 Gulf War." This second line is cut and pasted, complete with the same grammatical error.
"In several places Downing Street edits the originals to make more sinister reading. A section, for example, six paragraphs long, on Saddam's Special Security Organisation, the exact same words are in the Californian student's paper. The dossier says the Mukhabarat - the main intelligence agency - is
"spying on foreign embassies in Iraq". The original reads:
"monitoring foreign embassies in Iraq."
A desperate effort by the Blair Government to go to war at any cost.
