Powell stumbles, the world balks, plagiarism exposed...and ...
reposting | 08.02.2003 21:57
"Powell stumbles, the world balks, plagiarism exposed...and Ridge puts out a new terror alert (surprise!)"
This is all over European news; BBC had it on TV today. There is talk on the Internet that it could bring down the Blair government. Virtual blackout in US main-media, but at least it has been on KPFA via Free Speech Radio News.
--------
[email from] "Kyle F. Hence" 2/7/03: "Iraq evidence a sham; UK dossier plagiarized"
Funny I haven't heard anything about this on cable news this morning! Seems this news was trumped by the Threat Alert being raised to "Yellow" or High!
START HERE:
Michael Ruppert's commentary in From the Wilderness
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/020603_plagiarized.html
COLIN POWELL'S much-vaunted case for war against Iraq suffered a setback
yesterday when it emerged that chunks of British "intelligence" that he
invoked were copied verbatim from an old article by a young academic.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-569257,00.html
------
UK's Blair under fire for plagiarised Iraq dossier
Reuters:
"Outraged politicians jumped on the revelation to accuse Blair of misleading the public and said it cast doubt on the credibility of his whole case against Saddam.
"This is the sort of thing that Saddam Hussein himself issues," fumed opposition Liberal Democrat Jenny Tonge.
"One of Blair's former junior defence ministers, Peter Kilfoyle, said he was shocked that the government was trying to win over Britons on such "thin evidence".
"It just adds to the general impression that what we have been treated to is a farrago of half-truths, assertions and over-the-top 'spin,'" he told BBC radio."...
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L07508844
-----------
"GLENDA: DOWNING STREET LIED ON DOSSIER" Daily Mirror (UK) Feb 7 2003
"Former Labour minister Glenda Jackson today accused the Government of lying to the public over its Iraq dossier.
"Ms Jackson said the file, which was supposed to prove Saddam's attempts to deceive the UN, is an example of how Downing Street is trying to mislead Britons.
"Last night it emerged the dossier was partly based on 12-year-old information and included chunks lifted from a thesis by a student in California.
"Ms Jackson told the BBC: "If that was presented to Parliament and the country as being up-to-date intelligence, albeit collected from a variety of sources but by British intelligence agents, and in fact as we now know they simply lifted it from a university thesis, it is another example of how the Government is attempting to mislead the country and Parliament on the issue of a possible war with Iraq.
http://indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=234959
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12618038&
method=full&siteid=50143
[paste URL together]
--------
[the only US report:]
"U.S. Scholar Uncredited in Iraq Report" By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press, Austin American-Statesman 2/7/03
..."Opponents of Blair's hawkish stance on Iraq said the case of the replica report was proof the government is not playing straight in making the case for a war on Saddam Hussein.
``It just adds to the general impression that what we have been treated to is a farrago of half-truths, assertions and over-the-top spin,'' lawmaker Peter Kilfoyle, a member of Blair's governing Labor Party, told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
..."Blair's spokesman said the sections of the report describing the current activities of Iraqi intelligence ``are largely based on intelligence material,'' but conceded that the section on Iraq's security structure--10 pages of the 19-page report--drew on al-Marashi's work, ``which in retrospect we should have acknowledged.''
..."Menzies Campbell, foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Liberal Democrats, said the affair was ``the intelligence equivalent of being caught stealing the spoons.''
"Glenda Jackson, a Labor Party lawmaker who has spoken against war with Iraq, said the document ``is another example of how the government is attempting to mislead the country and Parliament on the issue of a possible war with Iraq.
"And of course, to mislead is a Parliamentary euphemism for lying.''
http://www.austin360.com/aas/news/ap/ap_story.html/Intl/AP.V7174.AP
-Britain-Iraq-Do.html
[paste URL together]
--------
"Iraq report 'is a rip-off from the internet" By John Peacock And James Hardy, UK Mirror 2/7/03
"A DOWNING Street dossier showing how Iraq has deceived UN weapons inspectors is partly based on a 12-year-old report, it was claimed last night.
"The Government is said to have used internet material from several sources, including a student in California, whose work was based on documents captured in 1991 following the first Gulf War.
"One expert said: "The Government is trying to build a case for war but, in view of this, what else can we believe?
"Colin Powell used some of this in his publication to the UN. It has got to cast questions over his presentation."
..."Dr Rangwala said the public had been led to believe the Government's report was a result of direct investigation, rather than simply copied from pre- existing internet sources.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12616651
&method=full&siteid=50143
[paste URL together]
--------
"UK lifted Iraq dossier from uni thesis, magazine" by ABCnews Australia 2/7/03
"It has been revealed a British Government dossier, said to be the latest intelligence on Iraq, was copied word-for-word from published sources.
..."Downing Street last weekend presented the dossier as an up-to-date, intelligence-led assessment of Iraq's concealment and deception efforts.
"But the BBC reports entire pages were copied without acknowledgment from a PhD thesis published in an American academic journal last year.
"Another page was copied from an article in the magazine Jane's Intelligence Review. The article is six-years-old.
"The Government even reproduced typing and grammatical mistakes made by the PhD student, 29-year-old Ibrihim Al Marashi.
"Mr Al Marashi said he had no idea his work had been used by Downing Street and he was stunned.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/justin/nat/newsnat-7feb2003-76.htm
-------
"Downing St dossier plagiarised" UK Channel 4
Published: 6 February 2003
Reporter: Julian Rush
"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"...
http://www.channel4.com/news/home/z/stories/20030206/dossier.html
-------------------
"UK war dossier a sham, say experts: British 'intelligence' lifted from academic articles" by Michael White and Brian Whitaker
Friday February 7, 2003
The Guardian
"Downing Street was last night plunged into acute international embarrassment after it emerged that large parts of the British government's latest dossier on Iraq - allegedly based on "intelligence material" - were taken from published academic articles, some of them several years old"...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,890898,00.html
-------
[email:]
UK war dossier a sham, say experts
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,890916,00.html
A plagiarized document! And Poodle Powell praised it in his UN speech Wed: "I would call my colleagues' attention to the fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed... which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities."
These bastards are going to get all of us killed!
Bev Conover
Editor & Publisher
Online Journal
http://www.onlinejournal.com
--------------
"Iraqi rebuttal: Key points" by BBC 2/6/03
"These are the key points of the response by Iraqi presidential adviser Amer al-Saadi to allegations by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that Baghdad is not complying with UN resolutions.
..."He said he "would not grace with any comments" intercepted conversations which purported to show that Iraq was deliberately obstructing inspectors. He said the tapes "were unworthy of a superpower", adding that "one can fabricate anything".
"Mr al-Saadi was scathing about charges that Iraq tried to overwhelm the UN inspectors with useless information. He said the UN resolution 1441 demanded Iraq "give full accurate and complete declaration", and that Baghdad had acted fully in accordance with it.
"He said that in describing the Iraqi weapons declaration as "false", the US contradicted the chief arms inspector, Hans Blix. Mr al-Saadi said the US statement was "unworthy and fabricated".
..."The general dismissed allegations that Iraq harboured an alleged terror group associated with al-Qaeda. He said Baghdad had no links with an alleged al-Qaeda operative, Abu Musab Zarqawi, who was mentioned in the US report. "We do not know him, and we do not know about his whereabouts." ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2734459.stm
-------
"U.S. inaction on camp questioned: White House silent on why alleged terrorist compound still stands" Gregg Miller, LA Times 2/7/03
"Washington -- Secretary of State Colin Powell spent a significant part of his presentation to the United Nations this week describing a terrorist camp in northern Iraq where al Qaeda affiliates are said to be training to carry out attacks with explosives and poisons.
"But neither Powell nor other administration officials answered the question: What is the United States doing about it?
"The lawmakers put new pressure on the Bush administration Thursday to explain its decision to leave the site unharmed. "Why have we not taken it out?" Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., asked Powell during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. "Why have we let it sit there if it's such a dangerous plant producing these toxins?"
"Powell declined to answer
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fg-intel7feb07,1,2328576.story
[LA Times requires registration. article also posted here:]
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=235028
-------
"Colin Powell is Lying" By Mike Hersh, Feb 6, 2003
..."All this is very upsetting but not shocking. Powell is a good soldier whose first important task was helping the government lie to the people about the Mi Lai Massacre.
"Each time Powell tells us we'd be better off massacring thousands or even millions of innocent Iraqis rather than continuing inspections and destroying any threat from Iraq without killing innocents, he's lying. Colin Powell is lying.
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=234756
------------
''The nuclear bomb hoax''
February 07, By Imad Khadduri Former Iraqi nuclear scientist
YellowTimes.org Guest Columnist (Canada)
..."the few flimsy so-called pieces of evidence that were
presented by Powell regarding a supposed continued Iraqi nuclear weapon
program serve only to weaken the American and British accusations and
reveal their untenable attempt to cover with a fig leaf their thread bare
arguments and misinformation campaign. The false and untrue pieces of
evidence follow:
http://yt.org/article.php?sid=1055
-------
"They Call This Evidence" by Jimmy Breslin February 6, 2003, Long Island, NY Newsday
..."He had three wiretap transcripts that were weak enough, until I realized that the conversations were in Arabic and I would like to meet the translator before accepting the copy.
..."Whatever it is, and you could get any number of people to dispute every word of this and have the conversations in doubt from start to finish, it still is about small items, one vehicle, ammunition that was still around as of the past two weeks.
"That is hardly enough reason to blow up the city of Baghdad with its civilians, with its women and its children in school"...
http://commondreams.org/views03/0207-07.htm
--------
"MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (a coast-to-coast enterprise; mostly intelligence officers from analysis side of CIA, but Operations side also represented), 2/7/03
"Secretary Powell's presentation at the UN today requires context.
..."The narrow focus on Resolution 1441 has diverted attention from the wider picture. It is crucial that we not lose sight of that. Intelligence community analysts are finding it hard to make themselves heard above the drumbeat for war.
..."to help you frame the issues. For they are far more far-reaching-and complicated-than "UN v. Saddam Hussein." And they need to be discussed dispassionately, in a setting in which sobriquets like "sinister nexus," "evil genius," and "web of lies" can be more hindrance than help"...
http://commondreams.org/views03/0207-04.htm
This is all over European news; BBC had it on TV today. There is talk on the Internet that it could bring down the Blair government. Virtual blackout in US main-media, but at least it has been on KPFA via Free Speech Radio News.
--------
[email from] "Kyle F. Hence" 2/7/03: "Iraq evidence a sham; UK dossier plagiarized"
Funny I haven't heard anything about this on cable news this morning! Seems this news was trumped by the Threat Alert being raised to "Yellow" or High!
START HERE:
Michael Ruppert's commentary in From the Wilderness
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/020603_plagiarized.html COLIN POWELL'S much-vaunted case for war against Iraq suffered a setback
yesterday when it emerged that chunks of British "intelligence" that he
invoked were copied verbatim from an old article by a young academic.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-569257,00.html ------
UK's Blair under fire for plagiarised Iraq dossier
Reuters:
"Outraged politicians jumped on the revelation to accuse Blair of misleading the public and said it cast doubt on the credibility of his whole case against Saddam.
"This is the sort of thing that Saddam Hussein himself issues," fumed opposition Liberal Democrat Jenny Tonge.
"One of Blair's former junior defence ministers, Peter Kilfoyle, said he was shocked that the government was trying to win over Britons on such "thin evidence".
"It just adds to the general impression that what we have been treated to is a farrago of half-truths, assertions and over-the-top 'spin,'" he told BBC radio."...
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L07508844 -----------
"GLENDA: DOWNING STREET LIED ON DOSSIER" Daily Mirror (UK) Feb 7 2003
"Former Labour minister Glenda Jackson today accused the Government of lying to the public over its Iraq dossier.
"Ms Jackson said the file, which was supposed to prove Saddam's attempts to deceive the UN, is an example of how Downing Street is trying to mislead Britons.
"Last night it emerged the dossier was partly based on 12-year-old information and included chunks lifted from a thesis by a student in California.
"Ms Jackson told the BBC: "If that was presented to Parliament and the country as being up-to-date intelligence, albeit collected from a variety of sources but by British intelligence agents, and in fact as we now know they simply lifted it from a university thesis, it is another example of how the Government is attempting to mislead the country and Parliament on the issue of a possible war with Iraq.
http://indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=234959 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12618038& method=full&siteid=50143
[paste URL together]
--------
[the only US report:]
"U.S. Scholar Uncredited in Iraq Report" By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press, Austin American-Statesman 2/7/03
..."Opponents of Blair's hawkish stance on Iraq said the case of the replica report was proof the government is not playing straight in making the case for a war on Saddam Hussein.
``It just adds to the general impression that what we have been treated to is a farrago of half-truths, assertions and over-the-top spin,'' lawmaker Peter Kilfoyle, a member of Blair's governing Labor Party, told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
..."Blair's spokesman said the sections of the report describing the current activities of Iraqi intelligence ``are largely based on intelligence material,'' but conceded that the section on Iraq's security structure--10 pages of the 19-page report--drew on al-Marashi's work, ``which in retrospect we should have acknowledged.''
..."Menzies Campbell, foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Liberal Democrats, said the affair was ``the intelligence equivalent of being caught stealing the spoons.''
"Glenda Jackson, a Labor Party lawmaker who has spoken against war with Iraq, said the document ``is another example of how the government is attempting to mislead the country and Parliament on the issue of a possible war with Iraq.
"And of course, to mislead is a Parliamentary euphemism for lying.''
http://www.austin360.com/aas/news/ap/ap_story.html/Intl/AP.V7174.AP -Britain-Iraq-Do.html
[paste URL together]
--------
"Iraq report 'is a rip-off from the internet" By John Peacock And James Hardy, UK Mirror 2/7/03
"A DOWNING Street dossier showing how Iraq has deceived UN weapons inspectors is partly based on a 12-year-old report, it was claimed last night.
"The Government is said to have used internet material from several sources, including a student in California, whose work was based on documents captured in 1991 following the first Gulf War.
"One expert said: "The Government is trying to build a case for war but, in view of this, what else can we believe?
"Colin Powell used some of this in his publication to the UN. It has got to cast questions over his presentation."
..."Dr Rangwala said the public had been led to believe the Government's report was a result of direct investigation, rather than simply copied from pre- existing internet sources.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12616651 &method=full&siteid=50143
[paste URL together]
--------
"UK lifted Iraq dossier from uni thesis, magazine" by ABCnews Australia 2/7/03
"It has been revealed a British Government dossier, said to be the latest intelligence on Iraq, was copied word-for-word from published sources.
..."Downing Street last weekend presented the dossier as an up-to-date, intelligence-led assessment of Iraq's concealment and deception efforts.
"But the BBC reports entire pages were copied without acknowledgment from a PhD thesis published in an American academic journal last year.
"Another page was copied from an article in the magazine Jane's Intelligence Review. The article is six-years-old.
"The Government even reproduced typing and grammatical mistakes made by the PhD student, 29-year-old Ibrihim Al Marashi.
"Mr Al Marashi said he had no idea his work had been used by Downing Street and he was stunned.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/justin/nat/newsnat-7feb2003-76.htm -------
"Downing St dossier plagiarised" UK Channel 4
Published: 6 February 2003
Reporter: Julian Rush
"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"...
http://www.channel4.com/news/home/z/stories/20030206/dossier.html -------------------
"UK war dossier a sham, say experts: British 'intelligence' lifted from academic articles" by Michael White and Brian Whitaker
Friday February 7, 2003
The Guardian
"Downing Street was last night plunged into acute international embarrassment after it emerged that large parts of the British government's latest dossier on Iraq - allegedly based on "intelligence material" - were taken from published academic articles, some of them several years old"...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,890898,00.html -------
[email:]
UK war dossier a sham, say experts
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,890916,00.html A plagiarized document! And Poodle Powell praised it in his UN speech Wed: "I would call my colleagues' attention to the fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed... which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities."
These bastards are going to get all of us killed!
Bev Conover
Editor & Publisher
Online Journal
http://www.onlinejournal.com --------------
"Iraqi rebuttal: Key points" by BBC 2/6/03
"These are the key points of the response by Iraqi presidential adviser Amer al-Saadi to allegations by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that Baghdad is not complying with UN resolutions.
..."He said he "would not grace with any comments" intercepted conversations which purported to show that Iraq was deliberately obstructing inspectors. He said the tapes "were unworthy of a superpower", adding that "one can fabricate anything".
"Mr al-Saadi was scathing about charges that Iraq tried to overwhelm the UN inspectors with useless information. He said the UN resolution 1441 demanded Iraq "give full accurate and complete declaration", and that Baghdad had acted fully in accordance with it.
"He said that in describing the Iraqi weapons declaration as "false", the US contradicted the chief arms inspector, Hans Blix. Mr al-Saadi said the US statement was "unworthy and fabricated".
..."The general dismissed allegations that Iraq harboured an alleged terror group associated with al-Qaeda. He said Baghdad had no links with an alleged al-Qaeda operative, Abu Musab Zarqawi, who was mentioned in the US report. "We do not know him, and we do not know about his whereabouts." ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2734459.stm -------
"U.S. inaction on camp questioned: White House silent on why alleged terrorist compound still stands" Gregg Miller, LA Times 2/7/03
"Washington -- Secretary of State Colin Powell spent a significant part of his presentation to the United Nations this week describing a terrorist camp in northern Iraq where al Qaeda affiliates are said to be training to carry out attacks with explosives and poisons.
"But neither Powell nor other administration officials answered the question: What is the United States doing about it?
"The lawmakers put new pressure on the Bush administration Thursday to explain its decision to leave the site unharmed. "Why have we not taken it out?" Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., asked Powell during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. "Why have we let it sit there if it's such a dangerous plant producing these toxins?"
"Powell declined to answer
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fg-intel7feb07,1,2328576.story [LA Times requires registration. article also posted here:]
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=235028 -------
"Colin Powell is Lying" By Mike Hersh, Feb 6, 2003
..."All this is very upsetting but not shocking. Powell is a good soldier whose first important task was helping the government lie to the people about the Mi Lai Massacre.
"Each time Powell tells us we'd be better off massacring thousands or even millions of innocent Iraqis rather than continuing inspections and destroying any threat from Iraq without killing innocents, he's lying. Colin Powell is lying.
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=234756 ------------
''The nuclear bomb hoax''
February 07, By Imad Khadduri Former Iraqi nuclear scientist
YellowTimes.org Guest Columnist (Canada)
..."the few flimsy so-called pieces of evidence that were
presented by Powell regarding a supposed continued Iraqi nuclear weapon
program serve only to weaken the American and British accusations and
reveal their untenable attempt to cover with a fig leaf their thread bare
arguments and misinformation campaign. The false and untrue pieces of
evidence follow:
http://yt.org/article.php?sid=1055 -------
"They Call This Evidence" by Jimmy Breslin February 6, 2003, Long Island, NY Newsday
..."He had three wiretap transcripts that were weak enough, until I realized that the conversations were in Arabic and I would like to meet the translator before accepting the copy.
..."Whatever it is, and you could get any number of people to dispute every word of this and have the conversations in doubt from start to finish, it still is about small items, one vehicle, ammunition that was still around as of the past two weeks.
"That is hardly enough reason to blow up the city of Baghdad with its civilians, with its women and its children in school"...
http://commondreams.org/views03/0207-07.htm --------
"MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (a coast-to-coast enterprise; mostly intelligence officers from analysis side of CIA, but Operations side also represented), 2/7/03
"Secretary Powell's presentation at the UN today requires context.
..."The narrow focus on Resolution 1441 has diverted attention from the wider picture. It is crucial that we not lose sight of that. Intelligence community analysts are finding it hard to make themselves heard above the drumbeat for war.
..."to help you frame the issues. For they are far more far-reaching-and complicated-than "UN v. Saddam Hussein." And they need to be discussed dispassionately, in a setting in which sobriquets like "sinister nexus," "evil genius," and "web of lies" can be more hindrance than help"...
http://commondreams.org/views03/0207-04.htm
reposting