US/ British Intelligence service
Hey Guys,
I was wondering , what's happening to our intelligence service ? or are our governments taking us for a ride ? :confused:
Quote:
Dr Rangwala, lecturer in politics at Cambridge University, told the programme that the British Government's dossier was 19 pages long, but most of pages 6 to 16 were copied directly from the student's document word for word.
"Even the grammatical errors and typographical mistakes," he said.
The information he was using is 12 years old and he acknowledges this in his article.
Quote:
But a government spokesman maintained that the report was accurate and said the government had never claimed all the material was from its spies.
Quote:
"I would call my colleagues' attention to the fine paper that United Kingdom distributed yesterday, which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities," Mr Powell told the UN security council.
Perhaps I should have posted this thread in the humour section!
Dr_Evil
Read this :
taken from :http://uk.news.yahoo.com/030207/80/dsl67.html
Downing Street stands by Iraq dossier
LONDON (Reuters) - The government says it stands by an intelligence dossier on Iraq, after academics said whole passages had been lifted from magazine articles, complete with spelling mistakes.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell drew attention to a British dossier on Iraq during his presentation to the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday. The British dossier says it is
compiled from intelligence material "and other sources".
Several academics came forward on Thursday saying they recognised most of the dossier as lifted, verbatim, from articles published in the U.S. journal the Middle East Review of International Affairs and in Jane's Intelligence Review.
In some cases the dossier included punctuation and spelling mistakes copied from the original articles.
"This appears to be obsolete academic analysis dressed up as the best MI6 and our other international partners can produce on Saddam," analyst Dan Plesch of the Royal United Services Institute said on Channel Four news.
But a government spokesman maintained that the report was accurate and said the government had never claimed all the material was from its spies.
"We consider the text as published to be accurate," he said.
"As the report itself makes clear, it was drawn from a number of sources, including intelligence material. It does not identify or credit any sources, but nor does it claim any exclusivity of authorship."
And this : from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/2735031.stm
UK defends 'copied' Iraq dossier
Downing Street has defended an intelligence dossier of evidence against Iraq after allegations that it included plagiarised material that was 12 years out of date.
The UK intelligence document released on Monday was designed to help win over sceptics by detailing Saddam Hussein's efforts to hide weapons of mass destruction.
But Channel 4 News claimed the document was largely copied from three different articles, including one written by a postgraduate student.
The programme claimed excerpts from a paper relating to the build-up to the 1991 Gulf War by Californian student Ibrahim al-Marashi were lifted into the intelligence document.
But a Downing Street spokesman said the dossier was "accurate" and that the government had never claimed exclusive authorship.
US praise
"The report was put together by a range of government officials," he said.
"As the report itself makes clear, it was drawn from a number of sources, including intelligence material.
It does not identify or credit any sources, but nor does it claim any exclusivity of authorship.
"We consider the text as published to be accurate."
The UK document received praise from US Secretary of State Colin Powell this week as he outlined his country's case against Iraq.
"I would call my colleagues' attention to the fine paper that United Kingdom distributed yesterday, which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities," Mr Powell told the UN security council.
Channel 4 News highlighted examples of the alleged plagiarism, including a suggestion in the dossier that Iraq was "supporting terrorist organisations in hostile regimes".
This compared to the weaker, political context in the original which read "aiding opposition groups in hostile regimes."
Errors copied
Dr Rangwala, lecturer in politics at Cambridge University, told the programme that the British Government's dossier was 19 pages long, but most of pages 6 to 16 were copied directly from the student's document word for word.
"Even the grammatical errors and typographical mistakes," he said.
The information he was using is 12 years old and he acknowledges this in his article.
"The British Government, when it transplants that information into its own dossier, does not make that acknowledgement."
Shadow defence secretary Bernard Jenkin said the Tories were deeply concerned by the programme's report.
"The government's reaction to the Channel 4 News report utterly fails to explain, deny or excuse the allegations made in it," he said.
"This document has been cited by the prime minister and Colin Powell as the basis for a possible war. Who is responsible for such an incredible failure of judgment?"
Cosmetic changes
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell added: "This is the intelligence equivalent of being caught stealing the spoons.
"The dossier may not amount to much but this is a considerable embarrassment for a government trying still to make a case for war."
Mr Al-Marashi told the BBC Two Newsnight programme the government document was still accurate despite "a few minor cosmetic changes".
"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."
And
This:http://uk.news.yahoo.com/030207/4/dsp4v.html
Downing Street failed to acknowledge dossier thesis
Downing Street says it made a mistake in failing to acknowledge a large section of a dossier on Saddam Hussein was copied from a student's outdated thesis.
The document was designed to help win over sceptics by outlining Iraq's alleged efforts to hide its weapons of mass destruction.
It said UN weapons inspectors were outnumbered by 200 to one by Iraqi agents trying to deceive them, and provided "up to date details" of Iraq's security organisations.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell even recommended it to the world in his keynote UN presentation on Wednesday, in which he called the document a "fine paper".
But it has emerged much of the document was lifted from a paper by Ibrahim al-Marashi, from Monterey, California - who was researching material relating to the build-up to the 1991 Gulf War and not to the current situation.
Dr al-Marashi says he is surprised to learn his work has been used by the British Government.
"I was a bit disenchanted because they never cited my article ... any academic, when you publish anything, the only thing you ask for in return is that they include a citation of your work.
"There are laws and regulations about plagiarism that you would think the UK Government would abide by," he added.
The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "The first and third sections of the dossier, which are largely based on intelligence material, describe the extreme lengths to which Saddam has gone to hide his weapons and obstruct the inspectors, and the third section the impact on the Iraqi people of the regime.
"The second section describes how the regime is structured, and it is parts of that which were based on Dr al-Marashi's work, which in retrospect we should have acknowledged."
Links:
http://www.ukonline.gov.uk/featurenews/iraqdossier.pdf
http://meria.idc.ac.il/
