[Drjones]

I'm a bit troubled.

I've been poking around at The Guardian's website, and found some interesting stuff:

"Downing Street was last night plunged into acute international embarrassment after it emerged that large parts of the British government's latest dossier on Iraq - allegedly based on "intelligence material" - were taken from published academic articles, some of them several years old.
Amid charges of "scandalous" plagiarism on the night when Tony Blair attempted to rally support for the US-led campaign against Saddam Hussein, Whitehall's dismay was compounded by the knowledge that the disputed document was singled out for praise by the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, in his speech to the UN security council on Wednesday."

Full article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,890916,00.html

What gives?

[Drjones]

Did I hit a nerve with someone?

[Art Eatman]

Naw. I've been out in the pasture, shredding, breaking the shredder, repairing the shredder, shredding...Came to the house to bandage wounds, drink some coffee and goof off on the Inet.

It's quite possible that information given to Powell was not the most recent or the most accurate. However, his case did not depend solely on Blair's offerings, so it's not all that big a deal. Well, except for those in England who were directly involved.

The article's squib you posted did not say the information was incorrect...

:), Art

[The Plainsman]

I guess my best take on this is - how sure are we that "The Guardian" is totally corrrect and what axe do they have to grind?

I must admit, it sure looks bad, but looks can certainly be deceiving. ;)

[geekWithA.45]

From the article, it seems that there is more embarrassment about failing to footnote, and the basic accuracy of the statements haven't been seriously challenged.

Does failure to footnote change anything with respect to the decision making process?

Probably not.


I've been evaluating this war as follows.


Bush asserts Sadaam seeks WMD and is a danger
Sadaam asserts he has no WMD, and is not a danger.

AT LEAST one of them is lying.

Based on Sadaam's past behaviour, he's definately lying.
Sadaam's past behavior supports Bush's assertion.

Theoretically, Bush MIGHT be lying, and if that is the case, we're infinitely in more trouble than if Sadaam is.

Let's face it. I love America, but her administrations have a track record of fabricating and enhancing stuff (The Maine incident, The Gulf Of Tonkin, etc) as pretext for war, and so we are rightfully wary.

[Leatherneck]

That assessment may be a bit extreme. But Dr, to answer your question: our leadership is fighting the political battle with just as much energy as our soldiers and Marines will have to fight the force-on-force battles. Frankly, as a somewhat reluctant supporter (but yes, a SUPPORTER) of the adminstration's chosen course of action, I wish they'd just shut up and order a go. IMHO, they look more and more stupid, the more they dredge up irrelevant factoids. I'm deeply troubled.:mad:

TC
TFL Survivor
Man, I need some range time :D

[JohnBT]

Wasn't that news the day after his speech? Maybe two days? It's not new news.

John

[geekWithA.45]

Leatherneck:

Respectfully, what's extreme there?

[JerryN]

In spite of repeated examples, clearly outlined in verifiable documentation, we still seem to ignore the fallibility of civilian media sources, especially in times of war.

It is entirely possible that the news presented was spoon fed to The Guardian by the Intel community. Let our information seem incorrect, old, obsolute. Brilliant.

But believable? Hardly. The finest intel groups in the history of mankind are not about to release what they know.

We're not going to find out what this all means by reading the Guardian or watching Dan Rather (who seems more and more senile every day). We might stand a chance of knowing what really happened in 20 years when the real information is no longer classified. Until then, any drivel such as the Guardian publishes is pure speculation.

[Drjones]

Actually, the article says that Powell's information (or, the English report he used as part of his presentation to the UN) was plagiarized from this "academic" source: http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue3/jv6n3a1.html

The "Govt." document: http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2003/02/07/uk0103.pdf




:confused:

[JerryN]

Quite so. And if I were running the intel show and wanted to obfuscate my intentions, I might produce something just like that myself.

Well done, wouldn't you say? Look how things like that get so many people flustered and confused. They start ranting and protesting - quite a distraction, I'd say.

[hso]

"...were taken from published academic articles, some of them several years old.
Amid charges of "scandalous" plagiarism..."

It sounds like the "plagiarism" accusation was what all the fuss was about. Considering that part of intelligence work is scouring all of the published information on a topic and evaluating and summarizing it I would consider the accusations of plagarism to be almost laughably beside the point or a red herring on the part of the members of parliment that raised it.

[Sean Smith]

Consider the source. :rolleyes:

[moa]

This issue is at the margins. However, according to recent news, Hans Blix report to the UN Security Council is more damning.

Besides the issue of 10,000 litres of Anthrax, and capacity to make more, has not been resolved, that Blix cited in his speech, there now something new:

1. An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) with a 24 foot wingspan and 300 mile plus range that can deliver chemical and biological weapons was recently found.

2. A missile with the capability to act as cluster bomb and deliver little bomblets over a large area with chemical or biological weapons was recently discovered.

These two items are from Blix's 200 page written report and were not cited in Blix's verbal report.

It appears that Blix is a weasel for playing down things like this.