Blair's Intelligence Lie Uncovered!

dathi1

So much for Colen Powel's evidence...it was backed up by in his words "a mighty fine document from our British allies" now seems to be a thesis made by a college student from Cambridge who compiled the thesis during the last gulf war in 91.



Nixon's mass homicide expert..He's happy anyway.

DiscoStu

ingsoc and minitru are doubleplusgood.

makes you wonder about what else they have fabricated.

dathi1

!turns out not only did they copy his thesis word for word but they also copied the spelling mistakes too

shotamoose

I think it's more accurate to call this 'plagiarism' rather than 'fabrication'. The author of the original stuff seems to think the British version is mostly accurate, though he says they inflated the numbers of Iraqi intelligence officers (might explain the claims of '20,000' Iraqis spying on the weapons inspectors) and changed certain words, such as 'opposition groups' to, er, 'terrorists'. Plus bits of it are twelve years out of date.

It's interesting, though, that the UK tried to pass this off as new intelligence when in fact it was cobbled together by civil servants from existing sources.

gandalf

Lads try and have links to your stories please.

Here is the link to the story on the BBC site http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2735031.stm oh and heres Sky news article http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-12241954,00.html

I think the word I'm looking for is pathetic. I wonder where Colin copied his stuff from

Gandalf.

bonkey

I picked it up on Ananova.

There's not much which can be said about this. There are only really two conclusions that I can see :

1) The US/UK were aware of this, and deliberately tried to pull the wool over the public's eyes.

2) The US/UK were not aware of this, and it was presented as a "fine document" in error.

So, either we have the US/UK administration lying to the public and the world in general about their proof, or all of their intelligence must immediately be re-examined and re-verified, as no-one should be able to have trust in it.

Of course, we will see neither of these things. We will hear "genuine mistake, but the rest of our stuff is honest...honest".

jc

daveirl

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dathi1

Yep...the Blair spin machine is a mighty force to be reckoned with and would put Bertie's Hire an American PR gang to shame.. The spin running now is : It was a mistake we're sorry...and wait for it... we should have credited Mr al-Marashi before publication!!!!! ?????

and that's it! Sky news reports on it like its alright...CH4 news makes a meal out of it.

Originally posted by gandalf
Lads try and have links to your stories please.

Here is the link to the story on the BBC site http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2735031.stm oh and heres Sky news article http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-12241954,00.html

I think the word I'm looking for is pathetic. I wonder where Colin copied his stuff from

Gandalf.

Gandalf, Does anyone have any idea, who this Mr Al-Mareshi is? other than that some years ago, he was a post grad student?
IE: what is his current field?
The reason I ask is, that in that BBC link above, he is quoted as saying:

"The only inaccuracies in the UK document were that they maybe inflated some of the numbers of these intelligence agencies. "The primary documents I used for this article are a collection of two sets of documents, one taken from Kurdish rebels in the north of Iraq - around four million documents - as well as 300,000 documents left by Iraqi security services in Kuwait."

If he said that yesterday, is he still in the inteligence industry?
And what basis, does he have for telling BBC 2's newsnight that:

the government document was still accurate despite "a few minor cosmetic changes".

I'm assuming that in the current climate, no inteligence agency would allow sources to become public, even if it made their case difficult.
If Mr Al mareshi is involved currently in inteligence gathering of some kind, it would be advisable that he goes on holidays for a while with Salman Rushdie:eek:

Although, I find, this episode, sloppy, I can't come to as bad a conclusion as the rest of ye , unless I know,Mr Al-Mareshi's field.
I note from the Anova article that he is being referred to as Dr Al Mareshi.

Also, even though I regard this whole episode as sloppy, would it not be usual, but ( in hindsight sloppy) for a government agency to flesh out a document like this, with information in the public domain, rather than compromise security sources that may have more long term on-going strategic importance?
mm

shotamoose

Dr Al-Marashi works at the Center for Non-Proliferation Studies in California.

dathi1

They done a great job in the states by issuing that terror alert 80 mins after this story broke, the networks dropped it.....coincidence no way.

Vuk

Originally posted by dathi1
They done a great job in the states by issuing that terror alert 80 mins after this story broke, the networks dropped it.....coincidence no way.

This is what CNN had to say about the increased threat level.

Ashcroft cited recent arrests in Britain of terrorism suspects with the chemical agent ricin, in France with cyanide compounds and in Spain with other chemicals in announcing the higher threat level.

TBH, these so called threats were detected between 7th-31st Jan, so the US was a wee bit slow in elevating to condition Orange.
The timing for the Bush administration of course, couldn't be better, as you said Dathi......coincidence no way.

daveirl

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Vuk

Originally posted by daveirl
That's complete rubbish. The story broke about 24 hours before they raised the terror alert level.

The story broke, during the am hours EST, as the US was waking up, the alert level was raised during the afternoon of the same day, not 24 hours later.

daveirl

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gandalf

Man what your missing here is that the document released was suppost to be current intelligence. It is in the main derived from a document which was based on Gulf War era data.

This is not a accurate document of the present Iraqi situation. It shows a tardyness and a dishonesty that is at the heart of the US/UK arguement for this war.

If this document and that dodgy powerpoint presentation of Colin Powells are the best evidence that can be conjured up to justify killing of innocents then it speaks volumes for the so-called democratic countries of America and Britain. If the UN capitulates to the demands of these two Warmongering regimes then it is irrelevant in my eyes.

Gandalf.

dathi1

That's complete rubbish. The story broke about 24 hours before they raised the terror alert level.

The story went official and broke ON THE UK TV NETWORKS yesterday at 11:30....then the yanks woke up to a terror alert.

Powel's PowerPoint presentation was specifically for doubters in the US.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

dathi1

you got up late 11:30 - 7:30 am......as above it broke across all networks By 11:30 When I seen it? then a terror alert was issued stateside which wiped it totally from breaking over there. They done a good job of it too. That code orange idea is brill.

daveirl

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PiE

Who cares what time it was issued at, fact of the matter is they lied and it hasn't been reported as such. This should be a national scandal (if life were Civ2, it'd be "Scandal in the Senate, Government Collapses!" or something), what we get is a minor blip on the road to war.

Originally posted by PiE
Who cares what time it was issued at, fact of the matter is they lied and it hasn't been reported as such. This should be a national scandal (if life were Civ2, it'd be "Scandal in the Senate, Government Collapses!" or something), what we get is a minor blip on the road to war.

Could you tell me where they lied please, and who are the "They" you are referring to??
mm

bonkey

Originally posted by PiE
Who cares what time it was issued at, fact of the matter is they lied and it hasn't been reported as such.

Exactly what was lied about, and by whom?

Remember that to tell a lie you must be aware that what you are saying is untrue.

The "admission" by the British is that they should have quoted the source. This is correct, but in no way implies that they deliberately withheld mentioning the source.

What is telling is that the statement about this seems to imply that the fact that the data is discussing information of a decade ago is not an issue to them. They seem to be indicating that this information is every bit as relevant to their argument as if it were dealing with the present day.

To a degree they have a point. Research a decade ago did raise issues. Some of those issues remain incompletely unresolved - or at least (in some cases) the western forces are unwilling to accept the explanations offered.

Thus, this research may still be relevant and valid. Alternately, it may be completely invalid...as no-one has come out and shown that these issues are or are not relevant today.

Or have they?

I notice that when this author said "its my work", a lot of people were willing to accept it. Now that he's saying "and much of it is still valid", people are calling his word into question.

This is an interesting issue. It shows that the pro-war argument may not be built on as strong a case as we would be led to believe. Alternately, it may simply show that the pro-war PR department dropped the ball, in allowing this document to be brought to the public's attention without properly explaining its relevance and significance.

Regardless of the outcome, I believe that it shows there is value in questioning the war. If nothing else, it forces a closer examination of all people on the issue - both the public, and (I believe) the various governments involved.

jc

gandalf

Bonkey you have answered your own question, they presented data that was over 10 years old as up to date intelligence.

They lied I don't care what way you all want to spin it !

Gandalf.

Originally posted by gandalf
Man what your missing here is that the document released was suppost to be current intelligence. It is in the main derived from a document which was based on Gulf War era data.

Gandalf.

I understand that, but given,what is at stake, for Blair in this,I am reckoning, that a mess such as this wasn't his intention.

My belief would be the document is meant to get a point across, as to how Sadams govt are operating, yet not comprimise security sources.
I don't believe for one minute,that Blair would go down this road at all, if he thought it wasn't the only road to go down.
IE: the road of, U.N 1441 , and at the same time , let Sadam see that the forces are there, if he continues to defy the U.N

Ok, it's costing billions to put the forces into the Middle East, but,that might be a small price to pay, if it helps prevent the proliferation of all sorts of nasty substances.
mm

dathi1

IE: the road of, U.N 1441 , and at the same time , let Sadam see that the forces are there, if he continues to defy the U.N

after 12 years of UN 1441 perhaps you're right.....doubt they will upset their Israeli colony by enforcing UN 242 now 36 years and going strong

Loomer

Shh... don't mention UN242 unless you want Mossad on your back

PiE

Originally posted by Man
Could you tell me where they lied please, and who are the "They" you are referring to??
mm

Originally posted by Bonkey
Exactly what was lied about, and by whom?

Remember that to tell a lie you must be aware that what you are saying is untrue

Who lied? The British Govt and considering the US Govt probably knew what was in the dossier, they did too. There's no way in hell I'm going to believe they weren't completely aware of what they were putting into the dossier and what they claimed as their own.

They've also "distorted" it to backup their claims that Hussein has expanded his forces. How on earth could he build his personal guard from 15,000 at the height of his military power (pre-Gulf War) to 40,000 now, after years of extensive sanctions and bombings?

Still though, the fact that it's been completely dropped from the news is what annoys me most.

shotamoose

Originally posted by PiE
Still though, the fact that it's been completely dropped from the news is what annoys me most.

I dunno what it was like in Ireland, but here in England they hardly shut up about it for at least a day. The plagiarism story totally obscured the actual contents of the dossier, in my experience. It certainly wasn't 'dropped'.

And anyway, it's untrue to say that the Govt claimed this as all their own work. They said it was 'drawn from various sources', which you could have interpreted as meaning it was their own work, and they weren't going to exactly rush to correct that judgement. They neglected to be totally honest, which is not to say that they tried to cover it up.

Originally posted by dathi1
after 12 years of UN 1441 perhaps you're right.....doubt they will upset their Israeli colony by enforcing UN 242 now 36 years and going strong

Hmmm, a bit out of date , that one, perhaps we should stay in 1967 altogether and roll back every thing thats happened since then:rolleyes:
mm

Loomer

"Hmmm, a bit out of date , that one, perhaps we should stay in 1967 altogether and roll back every thing thats happened since then
mm"

If your justifying Israels unprovoked first strike on Egypt, Syria and Jordan I assume the same applies for Saddam moving into Kuwait??