Compilation of information about the fraudulent dossier produced by Tony Blair, Prime Minister in January 2003

Stephen Hewitt, 21 February 2003 , last updated $Date: 2003/02/21 13:09:20 $

Introduction

The intention is to produce a detailed analysis, not only of the deceit of the dossier, but also any deceit, error(s) and concealment in media reporting of the affair.

As a preliminary to this I have begun to gather relevant documents from the web. They are presented here with the wish that in the meantime they are also useful to others.

Initial Observations

It is already possible to make an immediate observation about media coverage. After several hours of searching on the web, I have yet to see one report that gives the web address of the original email that Glen Rangwala posted to the CASI (Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq) discussion group, even though it is in a public archive. I resorted to using google to search the CASI site, after reading in the Cambridge student newspaper Varsity that that is where it was. This fact is another small piece of evidence supporting the hypothesis that many journalists have as their goal the concealment of information and its sources and the maintenance of a monopoly on its supply, rather than the provision of a useful service to their readers.

Secondly, regarding the Prime Minister and his reported apology for plagiarising copyrighted material, the offending report still remains on the government website, with no warning, acknowledgement of sources, or apology, from where I took a copy of it on Wednesday (19 February 2003).

Sources on the web

The fraudulent government report: http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page7111.asp

The government webpage above page refers to following locations which contain the report itself: http://www.ukonline.gov.uk//Images/img213573.pdf Clarion local copy made on 19 February 2003 : fraudulent_document.pdf (209 Kbytes)

http://www.number-10.gov.uk/files/word/Iraq.doc Clarion local copy made on 19 February 2003 : fraudulent_document.doc (66 Kbytes)

Glen Rangwala's email to the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq, revealing the true origins of material in the document: http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2003/msg00457.html

Some of the sources that were plagiarised. These are taken from Glen Rangwala's email above: http://cns.miis.edu/research/iraq/pdfs/iraqint.pdf

and

This page has obviously been updated since publication, because it now contains a link to another page which contains a comment about the plagiarism. http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue3/jv6n3a1.html

Glen Rangwala's email also points out articles from Jane's Intelligence Review that were plagiarised. Here is a comment from Janes: http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jid/jid030214_1_n.shtml

The Janes Intelligence Review articles are available only by subscription but even without that you can independently confirm their existence with the following links: http://www.janes.com/regional_news/africa_middle_east/news_briefs/jir9708_07.shtml http://www.janes.com/regional_news/africa_middle_east/news_briefs/jir9707_07.shtml

Media reporting

Email from Sanjoy Mahajan on CASI discussion list giving details of press coverage on 7 February 2003 http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2003/msg00507.html

An advertisment for the report from the Observer (a British newspaper): http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,887280,00.html

Varsity, - this is taken from the printed edition - ../local_reports/deceitful_dossier_varsity_14feb2003.html