Andy Beckett’s helpful history of the Chilcot Inquiry (“Revelations
or Whitewash,” G2, 5 July; https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/04/chilcot-inquiry-iraq-war-whitewash
) conflates two dossiers.
What Beckett describes as the ”dodgy dossier” on Iraq’s
WMD was the wrong one. He should have been explained that the “dodgy dossier was actually called ‘Iraq – Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and
Intimidation’ the one the then prime minister Tony Blair’s
propagandist-in-chief (officially his head of government communications and
strategy) Alastair Campbell, compiled mainly
from a plagiarized American academic research paper by Professor Ibrahim
al-Marashi, of California State University at San Marcos, entitled ‘Iraq's Security and Intelligence Network: A Guide and Analysis’.
The dossier on Iraq’s alleged WMDs was also heavily
edited by Campbell, so much so it should really become notorious as the ‘distorted
dossier’
But the then prime
minister Blair praised it to the hilt when unveiling and commending its
contents it to the House of Commons on 24 September 2002. (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/sep/24/foreignpolicy.houseofcommons)
As we enter a period of post-Chilcot reflection and
analysis, it is as well to get some of the basic facts right!
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