“The Sloppy Dossier”: Plagiarism and “Fake Intelligence” Used to Justify the War on Iraq: Copied and Pasted from the Internet into an “Official” British Intel Report

Glen Rangwala and Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research

Fifteen years ago, the illegal invasion of Iraq. March  21, 2003.

While the Chilcot Inquiry report was released in 2016, it is worth noting that most of the dodgy dossier evidence pertaining to Tony Blair and George W, Bush was available before the onset of the Iraq war in March 2003.  

Fake intelligence as well as plagiarized quotations had been slipped into an official intelligence report pertaining to Iraq’s WMD presented to the UN Security Council by Secretary of State Colin Powell on February 5, 2003.  

Damning evidence refuting Colin Powell’s official intelligence report was revealed by Cambridge Lecturer Dr. Glen Rangwala (image right) on  Britain’s Channel 4 TV on February 6, 2003, on the day following Secretary of State Colin Powell’s historic Iraq WMD presentation to the UN Security Council: 

“I would call my colleagues’ attention to the fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed . . . which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities.” (Colin Powell, UN Security Council, February 5, 2003)

Powell was referring to “Iraq Its Infrastructure Of Concealment, Deception And Intimidation”, published on January 30, 2003.

According to Rangwala, the  British intelligence document was fake. It had not been prepared by British intelligence. It was copied and pasted from the internet by members of Tony Blair’s staff:   

The Downing Street authors state they drew “upon a number of sources, including intelligence material” (p.1, first sentence). In fact, they copied material from at least three different authors and gave no credit to them. Indeed, they plagiarized, directly cutting and pasting or near quoting.
A close textual analysis suggests that the UK authors had little access to first-hand intelligence sources and instead based their work on academic papers, which they selectively distorted. Some of the papers used were considerably out of date. This leads the reader to wonder about the reliability and veracity of the Downing Street document.

It was a fake document prepared on the instructions of prime minister Blair with a view to building a “credible” justification to wage war on Iraq. 

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