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Headlines Feb 06
Posted: Thursday, February 6, 2003
Trust Colin Powell?
Downing St dossier on Iraq, plagiarised
The government's carefully co-ordinated propaganda offensive took an embarrassing hit tonight after Downing Street was accused of plagiarism.
Read sample of the accused plagiarised text
The target is an intelligence dossier released on Monday and heralded by none other than Colin Powell at the UN yesterday. Channel Four News has learnt that the bulk of the nineteen page document was copied from three different articles - one written by a graduate student.
UK's Dossier on Iraq, cited by Colin Powell
One of the articles the dossier stole from
General Powell at the UN
Spiel, Stunts and Special Effects
US claim dismissed by Blix
Hans Blix said there was no evidence of mobile biological weapons laboratories or of Iraq trying to foil inspectors by moving equipment before his teams arrived.
Kurds Puzzled by Report of Terror Camp
Powell's Lack Of Proof Exposes War Of Flaws
 But sceptics said the US could have digitally altered pictures and manipulated tapes. The Institute of International and Strategic Relations, in Paris, said: "Mr Powell makes serious charges, but there's no proof. You can't attack on the basis of photos. That would be dangerous." Britain was virtually isolated in backing Mr Powell's tough rhetoric. Russia, France and China, who have a veto over a second UN resolution which could lead to war, said the work of UN weapons inspectors must go on.
N Korea threatens US with first strike
North Korea is entitled to launch a pre-emptive strike against the US rather than wait until the American military have finished with Iraq, the North's foreign ministry told the Guardian yesterday.
"The United States says that after Iraq, we are next", said the deputy director Ri Pyong-gap, "but we have our own countermeasures. Pre-emptive attacks are not the exclusive right of the US."
Don't let the facts get in the way: Given its history,
US intelligence should come with a health warning
We know from experience that politicians about to go to war are not above manipulating information to heat up public opinion. They have manufactured international incidents - the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin "clash", for example, which President Johnson used to deceive the Senate into giving him a declaration of war against North Vietnam. They can be the simple peddling of "evil Hun" stories, as with the discredited accounts of Iraqi soldiers pulling Kuwaiti babies from incubators. History has revealed the truth about such episodes, but too late.
Powell claims European terror network is run by al-Qa'ida team based in Iraq
Zarqawi had initially been restricted to northern Kurdish areas of Iraq, outside the control of Saddam Hussein's regime but under the control of a fundamentalist group, Ansar al-Islam, which had been infiltrated by a senior Iraqi agent who invited al-Qa'ida to the area, General Powell said.
General Powell overstated his case by linking a small al-Qa'ida presence in Iraq to terrorist activity across Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Chechnya and Russia. His remarks were also at odds with a British defence intelligence document that was leaked yesterday and suggested that such a relationship has foundered. Overstated here is an understatement!
Smudged shadow of a smoking gun
What they got were some smoking intercepts, a few smudgy satellite photographs, a teaspoon of talcum powder, some Lego-style drawings of sinister trucks and trains, a picture of an American U2 spy plane, several mugshots of Arabic men and a script that required a suspension of mistrust by the world's doves.
Robert Fisk: You wanted to believe him?
but it was like something out of Beckett
Certainly we don't trust Saddam but Secretary of State Powell's presentation was a mixture of awesomely funny recordings of Iraqi Republican Guard telephone intercepts à la Samuel Beckett that just might have been some terrifying little proof that Saddam really is conning the UN inspectors again, and some ancient material on the Monster of Baghdad's all too well known record of beastliness. I am still waiting to hear the Arabic for the State Department's translation of "Okay Buddy" – "Consider it done, Sir" – this from the Republican Guard's "Captain Ibrahim", for heaven's sake – and some dinky illustrations of mobile bio-labs whose lorries and railway trucks were in such perfect condition that they suggested the Pentagon didn't have much idea of the dilapidated state of Saddam's army.
US fabricated evidence in Yugoslavia,
says former official
Any US evidence against Iraq should be viewed with skepticism
Israel: Iraq Aids Palestinian Terror,
But No Links to Al Qaeda
While Al Qaeda and Palestinian militants, some backed by Iraq, share a hatred of Israelis and Americans and use similar methods, such as suicide attacks, Israeli intelligence sources say no link has yet been conclusively established between Saddam and Al Qaeda.
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