23 March 2018 — Global Research

Fifteen years ago, the illegal invasion of Iraq. March  21, 2003.

While the Chilcot Inquiry report was released in 2016, it is worth noting that most of the dodgy dossier evidence pertaining to Tony Blair and George W, Bush was available before the onset of the Iraq war in March 2003.  

Damning evidence refuting Colin Powell’s  official intelligence report was revealed by Cambridge Lecturer Dr. Glen Rangwala on  Britain’s Channel 4 TV on February 6, 2003, on the day following Secretary of State Colin Powell’s historic Iraq WMD presentation to the UN Security Council: 

Fake intelligence as well as plagiarized quotations had been slipped into an official intelligence report pertaining to Iraq’s WMD presented to the UN Security Council by Secretary of State Colin Powell on February 5, 2003.  

“I would call my colleagues’ attention to the fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed . . . which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities.” (Colin Powell, UN Security Council, February 5, 2003)

Powell was referring to “Iraq Its Infrastructure Of Concealment, Deception And Intimidation”, published on January 30, 2003.

According to Rangwala, the  British intelligence document was fake. It had not been prepared by British intelligence. It was copied and pasted from the internet by members of Tony Blair’s staff:   

The Downing Street authors state they drew “upon a number of sources, including intelligence material” (p.1, first sentence). In fact, they copied material from at least three different authors and gave no credit to them. Indeed, they plagiarized, directly cutting and pasting or near quoting.

A close textual analysis suggests that the UK authors had little access to first-hand intelligence sources and instead based their work on academic papers, which they selectively distorted. Some of the papers used were considerably out of date. This leads the reader to wonder about the reliability and veracity of the Downing Street document.

It was a fake document prepared on the instructions of prime minister Blair with a view to building a “credible” justification to wage war on Iraq.  

Rangwala’s analysis was more than a smoking gun. It revealed the Big Lie. It invalidated Colin’s Powell’s presentation to the UN Security Council. It had to be suppressed. 

In many regards, the Rangwala revelation was far more important than the leak of the Secret July 2002 Downing Street Memo:  

C  reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime’s record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

The “WMD facts” had to be “documented”. Did British intelligence refuse to comply with Tony Blair’s demands to produce a fast track report which would “fix the facts”?  Rangwala’s analysis confirms that British intelligence was not involved in what we might describe as the “Sloppy Dossier”.

The “facts” were put together in a hurry (not by MI6) but by Tony Blair’s public relations’ staff, who casually committed acts of plagiarism and political fraud in support of a criminal military agenda. 

The report was finalized one week before Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN Security Council; the “facts” and supporting quotations were copied and pasted by members of Tony Blair’s cabinet from the internet and inserted into an official and authoritative document.  

Plagiarism had become a means to justifying the war on Iraq. 

The Rangwala revelation was the “unspoken truth”. With the exception of Channel 4 and The Guardian, it was not the object of mainstream media coverage both before as well as after the March invasion of Iraq. It had to be suppressed. The invasion of Iraq had already been scheduled for March 2003.

The Role of Colin Powell in Planning the War on Iraq

In retrospect, the Rangwala findings also bring to the forefront the insidious and complicit role of Colin Powell, who organized the Crawford Texas meetings in early April 2002 between Bush and Blair, as confirmed by the recently leaked emails (see below).

What these emails suggest is that Colin Powell had been entrusted in setting the stage for the war on Iraq, initially at the Bush-Blair Crawford meetings on April 5-7, 2002, leading up to his presentation of the British intelligence dossier on Iraq’s alleged WMD at the UN Security Council on February 5,  2003.

Lest we forget Colin Powell played a behind the scenes role in the Iran Contra Affair. 

The Crawford meetings were intended to plan the war on Iraq. 

Colin Powell was a central political instrument. The issue is who was Behind Colin Powell?

Who was present at the Crawford meetings? Reports confirm that Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleeza Rice  were among those present.

 

In the wake of the Iraq invasion, the plagiarized “British intelligence Iraq Dossier” presented to the UN Security Council by (former) Secretary of State Colin Powell was so to speak “forgotten”.  

The plagiarism issue nonetheless confirms beyond doubt the war crimes’ allegations against George W. Bush and Tony Blair.

Rangwala’s report was known to Britain’s parliament. It was presented three months after the war was launched: In June 2003, Rangwala submitted his findings to the House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs. (see below for full text).

There was no follow-up. Rangwala’s report which confirmed the criminal nature of the US led war on Iraq, which resulted in more than 2 million civilian deaths.

Michel Chossudovsky, November 8, 2015, updated: July 14, 2016, March 22, 2018

See: Plagiarism and Iraq’s WMDs: British Intelligence Iraq Dossier Relied on Recycled Academic Article By Glen Rangwala