The UK's February 2003 Iraq dossier was based on intelligence
| The UK's February 2003 Iraq dossier was based on intelligence | |
|---|---|
| FALSE | |
| "The British government's February 2003 dossier on Iraq's concealment of weapons drew on up-to-date intelligence." | |
| Domain | War, Conflict & Geopolitics |
| Tactic | Fabrication Imposture |
| Era | Current |
| First seen | 2003 |
| Origin | The UK government document Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation, released February 3, 2003 |
| Last reviewed | 2026-11-01 |
| Further reading: books on War, Conflict & Geopolitics | |
On February 3, 2003, Downing Street released a dossier on Iraq's security services and its concealment of weapons. Tony Blair cited it in Parliament, and Colin Powell praised it at the UN Security Council two days later.
Within days, Cambridge academic Glen Rangwala showed that large parts were copied, without attribution, from an article by a graduate student, Ibrahim al-Marashi, based on documents from 1991, together with material from other published sources. Even typing errors had been copied.
What the evidence shows
- Plagiarism. Passages from al-Marashi's article in the Middle East Review of International Affairs (September 2002) were reproduced nearly word for word, with some wording made more alarming.
- Admission. Downing Street acknowledged that the document should have credited its sources, and it became known as the "dodgy dossier."
- Inquiries. The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee called the episode "almost wholly counter-productive" to the government's case, and the Chilcot Inquiry later reviewed it.
Why it matters
A document presented as intelligence was largely an old academic paper. The episode damaged the credibility of the government's wider case for war.
Sources
- House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, The Decision to go to War in Iraq, Ninth Report of Session 2002–03, July 2003.
- Report of the Iraq Inquiry (Chilcot Report), July 6, 2016.
- BBC News, "UK war dossier a sham, say experts," February 7, 2003.