Iraq Dossier

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Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation (more commonly known as the Dodgy Dossier, the Iraq Dossier or the February Dossier^{[citation needed]}) was a 2003 briefing document for the Blair Labour government. It was issued to journalists on 3 February 2003 by Alastair Campbell, Blair's Director of Communications and Strategy, and concerned Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. Together with the earlier September Dossier, these documents were ultimately used by the government to justify its involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The term Dodgy Dossier was first coined by online polemical magazine Spiked^[1]. The term was later employed by Channel 4 News when its reporters were made aware of Glen Rangwala's discovery^[2] that much of the work had been plagiarised from various unattributed sources. The most notable source was an article by Ibrahim al-Marashi entitled Iraq's Security & Intelligence Network: A Guide & Analysis^[3], which was published in the September 2002 issue of the Middle East Review of International Affairs.^[4]

Whole sections of Marashi's writings on "Saddam's Special Security Organisation" were repeated verbatim including typographical errors, while certain amendments were made to strengthen the tone of the alleged findings (eg. "monitoring foreign embassies in Iraq" became "spying on foreign embassies in Iraq", and "aiding opposition groups in hostile regimes" became "supporting terrorist organisations in hostile regimes").

In its opening paragraph the briefing document claimed that it drew "upon a number of sources, including intelligence reports". Before the document's release it had been praised by Tony Blair and Colin Powell as further intelligence and quality research. The day after Channel 4's exposé, Tony Blair's office issued a statement admitting that a mistake was made in not crediting its sources, but did not concede that the quality of the document's content was affected.

The claims contained in the 'September' and 'Iraq' Dossiers were called into question when weapons of mass destruction were not found in Iraq, and the dossiers were encompassed by House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee inquiry. The Committee subsequently reported that the sources should have been credited, and that the dossier should have been checked by ministers before being released. The dossier had only been reviewed by a group of civil servants operating under Alastair Campbell. The committee stated that the publication was "almost wholly counter-productive" and in the event only served to undermine the credibility of the government's case.

The controversy over the 'Iraq Dossier' was mentioned frequently in the government's conflict with the BBC over the claim in the 'September Dossier' that Iraq could deploy biological weapons within 45 minutes of an order to do so, and the controversy surrounding the death of Doctor David Kelly. Andrew Gilligan, the BBC journalist who wrote a report which claimed that the September Dossier had been deliberately exaggerated, stated before the Hutton Inquiry that recalling the February Dossier had led him to file his report based on his interview with David Kelly without seeking confirmation from other sources.

The dossier became a point of amusement in British politics. In a Prime Minister's Questions conflict with Blair, Michael Howard (then leader of HM Opposition), informed Blair that the conservatives "had a full dossier on him", and "they hadn't even had to sex it up!".