Dodgy Dossier
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The Dodgy Dossier was a briefing paper issued to journalists by the British Prime Minister's Director of Communications and Strategy Alastair Campbell, on 3 February 2003 about Iraqi production and use of weapons of mass destruction. The paper, entitled Iraq - its infrastructure of concealment, deception and intimidation was a follow-up to the previously issued September Dossier, and was issued to support UK government policy on the confrontation with Iraq.
The term "Dodgy Dossier" was coined when Channel 4 News examined a copy of the dossier in Microsoft Word format. By reading the file contents directly they discovered that much of the work had been plagiarised from various uncredited sources, most notably from a postgraduate thesis published on the internet. Whole sections of Californian student Ibrahim al-Marashi's article on "Saddam's Special Security Organisation" were repeated verbatim (with some typographical errors included), and minor modifications had been made which strengthened the wording - for example: "monitoring foreign embassies in Iraq" became "spying on foreign embassies in Iraq", and "aiding opposition groups in hostile regimes" became "supporting terrorist organisations in hostile regimes".
The report itself claims in its opening paragraph to draw "upon a number of sources, including intelligence reports". Ahead of the document's release it had been praised by Tony Blair and Colin Powell as further intelligence and quality research.
A day after Channel 4's allegations, Downing Street issued a statement, admitting a mistake was made in not crediting its sources, but that this error did not alter the quality of the report's content.
The claims of both the "September" and "Dodgy" dossiers were called into question during the 2003 war on Iraq, when Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) had failed to be used or found, and the dossiers were the subject of an enquiry by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee. The Committee subsequently reported that the sources should have been credited, and that the dossier should have been checked by ministers before being released. The dossier had only been reviewed by a group of civil servants operating under Alastair Campbell. The committee stated that the publication was "almost wholly counter-productive" and only served to undermine the credibility of the government's case.
The controversy over the "Dodgy Dossier" was mentioned frequently in the government's fight with the BBC over the September Dossier that Iraq could deploy biological weapons within 45 minutes of an order to do so, and the controversy surrounding the death of Doctor David Kelly.
See Also
External links
- PDF version of the February dossier (http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/page1470.asp)
- Article by Ibrahim al-Marashi on "Iraq's Security and Intelligence Network" (http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue3/jv6n3a1.html)
- Foreign Affairs Select Committee report on the decision to go to war in Iraq (PDF) (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmfaff/813/813.pdf)
- Original Channel 4 News report on the dodginess of the dossier (http://www.channel4.com/news/2003/02/week_1/06_dossier.html)
- Guardian articles on the subject (http://media.guardian.co.uk/iraqandthemedia/0,12823,883261,00.html)