Britain plagiarises latest Iraq dossier

[davidhorman]

Apologies if this has been covered already, but I haven't seen it in the subject lines.

Britain's latest dossier on Iraq turns out to be partially plagiarised from a 12 year old paper written by a Californian graduate student:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2736149.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2735031.stm

The government and the orginal author both say it's still accurate, and a spokesman has admitted they should have credited the ex-student, but that the compilers also never claimed exclusive authorship.

David

[Jon_in_london]

This is a bit of non-news. So they used verbatim, some tracts from a scholars analysis of Iraq. Big fat hairy w@nk. (Unless you are a grauniad reader in which case it means that Powells entire presentation is a 'sham' and Tony Benn for President!!)

[iain]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london
This is a bit of non-news. So they used verbatim, some tracts from a scholars analysis of Iraq. Big fat hairy w@nk. (Unless you are a grauniad reader in which case it means that Powells entire presentation is a 'sham' and Tony Benn for President!!) I'm not convinced that this is "non-news". The UK Government had been saying for some time that they had information on Iraq which would convince people that the Bush/Blair cause was right, but they couldn't release it yet.

It finally gets released, and it turns out that big chunks of it have been plagiarised (without either authorisation or attribution) from sources in the public domain.

The two questions I have are :
1. How much real intelligence (i.e. not available in the public domain) does the UK Government have about Iraq?
2. To what extent can we trust what the US and UK Governments are telling us about Iraq, if they are unable to be honest about their own public sources Governments always lie and use propoganda in every war; I really can't see why this one should be any different.

Given that the case as presented so far is far from solid (i.e. it has been taken as good evidence by the hawks, but failed to convince a significant number of doves or fence-sitters), these revelations do look like they weaken it even further.

Edited to add As for the Guardian reader jibe, portraying those anti-war as lefty extremists doesn't sit very well with the fact that a large proportion of the UK populaton, MPs and cabinet members are (rightly or wrongly) anti-war.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by iain
I'm not convinced that this is "non-news". The UK Government had been saying for some time that they had information on Iraq which would convince people that the Bush/Blair cause was right, but they couldn't release it yet.

It finally gets released, and it turns out that big chunks of it have been plagiarised (without either authorisation or attribution) from sources in the public domain.


I agree this is an angle I hadnt thought of- the fact that so much is 'so secret we cant even tell you waht it is' turns out to be some graduate students dissertation is erm... not very trust building.

Originally posted by iain

Edited to add As for the Guardian reader jibe, portraying those anti-war as lefty extremists doesn't sit very well with the fact that a large proportion of the UK populaton, MPs and cabinet members are (rightly or wrongly) anti-war.

Im not disputing the fact that the majority of UKers are anti-war I just get fed up with the intrasigent position that the Grauniad adopts. S'far as I can see it still doesnt make Powell's PowerPoint Presentation(tm) a 'sham' (as reported in the grauniad) since the substance of the report is no less true just because it was 'plagarised'. But this isnt academia we are talking about here and you cant be excluded for not referencing in the world of international war mong... er.. I mean politics.

What Im trying to say is: just because it was 'plagarised' doesnt invalidate it.