Blair aide admits mistake in copying Iraq WMD material from Internet [Grad student]

Jerusalem Post ^ | Jun. 25, 2003 | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

[yonif]

Prime Minister Tony Blair's communications chief admitted Wednesday that a mistake was made when a government dossier on Iraqi weapons included material lifted from a graduate thesis on the Internet.

Controversy over the dossier, a key part of the government's argument for military action in Iraq, intensified as Blair was under fresh pressure to get troops out of the region following the deaths of six military policemen.

Campbell told a parliamentary committee said the inclusion of work from a graduate thesis in the dossier, which outlined the weapons of mass destruction threat posed by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, published by the government in February was "regrettable."

The dossier - one of two - was a crucial part of Blair's hard-fought case to persuade a skeptical Parliament of the need for military action to topple Saddam Hussein. The failure of coalition forces to find weapons of mass destruction since the war ended has put Blair on the defensive, though he has insisted that he believes they will be found.

Earlier, Blair told the House of Commons that the document was "entirely accurate," even though he was not aware that parts of it were taken from a student's thesis when he published it.

Blair came under pointed questioning from lawmakers, including members of his Labor Party, about how long British troops would remain in Iraq following the killing of six British soldiers in the south of the country.

Jon Owen Jones, a Labor lawmaker, told the prime minister that Britain "desperately requires an exit strategy" from Iraq.

Blair said the British troop requirement had already been reduced from 46,000 there during the conflict to 14,000 now. "Exactly when those troops can come home I cannot be sure," he said.

"Our exit strategy has to be a strategy based on making sure that we maintain our pledge to help Iraq be rebuilt as a stable and prosperous country because if it is not rebuilt in that way, if it were to continue under the type of regime that Saddam Hussein represented, then it would continue to be a threat to the region and the wider world," he added.

Blair won some support from the opposition Conservative Party, whose leader Ian Duncan Smith said the "incident should serve only to reinforce our resolve to bring peace and the rule of law to Iraq."

Blair expressed his condolences for the deaths of six troops from the Royal Military Police, whose bodies were recovered Tuesday from the town of Majar al-Kabir, where they had been helping train local police.

He said the incident showed the security situation in Iraq was serious and pledged further efforts to bring stability. "Even at this moment in time, it is particularly important that we make sure that we redouble our efforts to bring stability to that country (Iraq) because that is the surest way of bringing stability to the rest of the world," Blair said.

Senior British officials have given few details of the circumstances surrounding the incident, the deadliest involving British troops - who are largely responsible for security in southern Iraq - since Saddam Hussein's ouster.

The Ministry of Defense declined to comment on how the soldiers died, but a British Army spokesman in the southern Iraqi city of Basra said they were murdered in an unprovoked attack.

[My2Cents]

Did the UN make a mistake when their weapons inspectors filed a report in 1999 that talked about Iraq having 360 tons of bulk chemical warfare agent, including 1.5 tons of VX nerve agent; up to 3,000 tons of percursor chemicals, including approximately 300 tons which were unique to the production of VX; growth media enough to produce 25,000 liters of anthrax spores; over 30,000 special munitians for delivery of chemical an biological agents; 2850 tons of mustard gas?

This news story sounds like a minor typo in a report on Iraq's WMD. Of course, the appeasers and those who mourn that the Saddam's regime has been taken out, will grasp at anything to fuel their naysaying.

[lelio]

parts of it were taken from a student's thesis when he published it
Is this what government "intellegence" has come down to? Granted, it could be a PhD thesis but still.
It almost seem like there's a big game of telephone going on where whispers turn into truths. Is no one keeping control of information?

[meenie]

There's a whole lot of lyin' goin' on.

[Smile-n-Win]

So what grade did the student get?

[Smile-n-Win]

Blair was under fresh pressure to get troops out of the region following the deaths of six military policemen.

That is not a reason to get troops out. It is a reason to avenge the murders, possibly bringing in more troops.

[joesbucks]

1999? Good grief, that was 4 years ago.

But were those hard numbers or just guesstimates. Worse yet, if tht material did exist, then where is it now. We've got eyes in the sky that can count the hairs on my butt but couldn't keep track of 360 tons of material. Give me a break. Something is wrong here.