UK's Blair Faces Fresh 'Dodgy Dossier' Claims

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair faced fresh claims of misleading the public over Iraq on Saturday after a newspaper reported the government's first weapons dossier had lifted old information from the Internet.

The Independent newspaper said the dossier, published last September, contained at least six separate items on Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction that were lifted from reports up to 21 months old. <cut

Earlier this week, the embattled prime minister told a parliamentary committee he stood by the first dossier, insisting it supported the need for military action.

But the Independent said Saturday the dossier drew heavily on sources already in the public domain, including a January 2001 briefing paper by William Cohen, Defense Secretary in the Clinton administration, and a September 2002 report on Iraq by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Information taken from these documents included references to ballistic missiles, unmanned drones and "dual use" of civil material, the paper said.
<cut

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20030711_617.html

"A spokesman for Blair declined to comment on the latest newspaper claims, insisting: 'We have said all we have to say.'"

All except for "I resign."

the direct links intelligence services have with the press. One of these leak stories, mentioned a "press briefing given by anonymous CIA case officers".

All except for Bill Gertz, that is. Miss Sludge's favorite writer, pretends he has CIA sources, but hes a OSP errand boy. Bad neo-con propaganda.

No way. No how. They, the MPs and the reporters, are wearing him down. He will eventually crack.

I found this article in the Independent

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=423840

Tony Blair's first Iraq weapons dossier used material culled from the internet to buttress the Government's case for war - exactly as the now- discredited second, so-called dodgy dossier did.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I was going to post that as a thread, but now I only have to :kick:

From the article

The plagiarised documents in the first dossier included mention of ballistic missiles, unmanned drones, nuclear programmes, "dual use" of civil material, maps showing how British bases in Cyprus were within range of Iraqi missiles and Saddam's supposed plan for regional domination.

In his foreword to the first dossier - Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction - Mr Blair wrote: "This document is based, in large part, on the work of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) ... Its work, like the material it analyses, is largely secret. It is unprecedented for the Government to publish this kind of document."

Although the action may be unprecedented, much of the information was freely available on the internet.

The dossier appears to have drawn heavily from three sources in the public domain. They are a briefing paper by William Cohen, US Defence Secretary in the Clinton administration, from January 2001; the appearance before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence by George Tenet, the CIA director, the following month; an unclassified CIA report to Congress covering the period 1 July to 31 December 2000; and a report on Iraq by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) published in London in September.