Much has been made recently of the "Dodgy Dossier" that was used by HMG to justify its participation in the invasion of Iraq. Although the government saved itself from reprimand by ensuring party partisanship on the parliamentary committee, it is clear that the dossier was plagiarised wholesale from an American graduate student's master's thesis a decade ago. [1]

But nobody seems to have seen fit to ask about the Really Dodgy Dossier, the one put forward by Number 10 in the days immediately following the 9/11 massacre. The "Responsibility For The Terrorist Atrocities In The United States, 11 September 2001" [2] was put forward by the PMO to show the "proof" of the involvement of Osama bin Laden in the 9/11 attacks, and was used by the Americans to justify their invasion of Afghanistan. As all good dodgy dossiers, it implied that it was the work of the intelligence community; as the US Secretary of State Colin Powell would go on to describe the Iraq Dodgy Dossier before the United Nations Security Council session of February 5, 2002:

"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."

But given the outright plagiarism of decade old material that made up the bulk of the Iraq Dodgy Dossier, it is germane to examine the "facts" contained in the Afghanistan Dossier to see if it is dodgy too. At least the Iraq Dodgy Dossier had some academic merit, having been submitted as a Master's thesis, and published in a small academic journal. Not so of the Afghanistan Dodgy Dossier; it is a simple collection of 70 points that warrant scrutiny. It is important to recall that on the day of 9/11, the American media just passed on what they were being told by their government. (Or in the case of General Wesley Clark, telling the media what his government was telling him to tell the media, whether he believed it or not. [3]) No proof of bin Laden's guilt was provided by the American media; the Americans promised to put out a paper that "describes clearly the evidence", [4] but Number 10 came to their rescue by putting out a dossier instead. This was the same modus operandi that was used as with the Iraq Dodgy Dossier, and the world press must have assumed that HMG is honest and respectable. But is it?

In fact, the 70 points, presented without any citations of sources or references, are mainly unsupported assertions and innuendo. By the very nature of the 9/11 massacre, the critical link boils down to the link between bin Laden and the hijackers. On this, the Afghanistan Dodgy Dossier devotes a grand total of only 1 of the 70 points, namely:

61. Nineteen men have been identified as the hijackers from the passenger lists of the four planes hijacked on 11 September 2001. At least three of them have already been positively identified as associates of Al Qaida. One has been identified as playing key roles in both the East African embassy attacks and the USS Cole attack. Investigations continue into the backgrounds of all the hijackers.
The real dodgy nature of the dossier becomes apparent when continued investigations of the backgrounds of the hijackers revealed that 8 weren't even in the United States at the time, and are in fact very much alive. [5] A detailed examination shows that the "proof" of bin Laden's guilt is distinctly lacking. [6]

If the Afghanistan Dossier is Dodgy, then the whole Bin Laden Conspiracy Theory begins to unravel. [7] Although this may not have been the only lie told by the Prime Minister's Office in making the case for the Americans to invade Afghanistan, [8] it is by far the most important, as this would raise the following very pertinent question: if bin Laden didn't do it, who did?

There is much of the 9/11 story that does not stand up to scrutiny, and the Bush administration has strenuously fought against any independent or thorough investigation. If the BBC is truly independent, perhaps it would investigate if the Anglo-American governments lied about the invasion of Afghanistan (which had been planned long before 9/11), as well as investigating who is truly Responsible for the Terrorist Atrocities In The United States on 11 September 2001.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Global Outlook. "British Intelligence Iraq Dossier Relies on Recycled Academic Articles" by Glen Rangwala.  http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RAN302A.html

2. Prime Minister's Office, London, "Responsibility For The Terrorist Atrocities In The United States, 11 September 2001".  http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page3682.asp

3. New York Times, "Pattern of Corruption" by Paul Krugman. 15 July 2003.  http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/15/opinion/15KRUG.html Reprinted at:  http://truthout.org/docs_03/01603E.shtml

4. WSWS, "White House reneges on proof of bin Laden’s guilt" By Kate Randall. 29 September 2001.  http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/sep2001/bush-s29.shtml;
Indymedia. "Mistranslated Osama bin Laden Video - the German Press Investigates" by Craig Morris. Dec 23 2001.  http://dc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=16389&group=webcast;
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), Montréal. "Who Is Osama Bin Laden?" by Michel Chossudovsky. 12 September 2001.  http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html

5. "Seven of the WTC Hijackers found alive!"  http://www.mujahideen.fsnet.co.uk/wtc/wtc-hijackers.htm Cached at:  http://propagandamatrix.com/seven_of_the_wtc_hijackers_found_alive.html ; BBC, "Hijack 'suspects' alive and well." September 23, 2001.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1559000/1559151.stm ;  http://muslimmedia.com/archives/world01/afgwar-die.htm ;
World Messenger. "Alleged Hijackers Alive and Well"  http://www.worldmessenger.20m.com/alive.html;
Islam Online, "Saudi Suspects in U.S. Attacks Were Not in the U.S." September 17, 2001.  http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2001-09/17/article11.shtml

6. "Troubling Questions in Troubling Times: A critical look at the history of attacks on the World Trade Center" by James S. Adam. 5 October 2001,  http://www.serendipity.li/wot/adam.htm
"George Bush, Jr., September 11th and the Rule of Law" by Francis A. Boyle, February 1, 2002.  http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/CrimNukDetSI.html

7. Indymedia. "Debunking conspiracy theorists: paranoid fantasies about Sept 11 distract from the real issues" by Gerard Holmgren.  http://buffalo.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=3265

8. About 90% of heroin on British streets originates in Afghanistan, the prime minister told the Labour Party Conference in October 2001. (BBC, "UK drugs trade 'funds Taleban'". 2 October, 2001). Yet at the time, before the American invasion, the Taliban had in fact banned the cultivation of opium. Now, almost 2 years after the American invasion, the production of opium in Afghanistan is at record levels. See: From The Wilderness Publications, "The Lies About Taliban Heroin" by Michael C. Ruppert. October 10, 2001.  http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/10_10_01_heroin.html;
"The Secret Heroin War" by Adam Porter. October 23, 2001.  http://www.guerrillanews.com/war_on_drugs/doc176.html