Much has been made recently of the "Dodgy Dossier" that was used by Her
Majesty's Government to justify its participation in the invasion of
Iraq. Although the government saved itself from reprimand by ensuring party
partisanship on the parliamentary committee, it is clear that the dossier
![[WWW]](ReallyDodgyDossier_files/moin-www.gif)
was plagiarized
wholesale from an American graduate student's master's thesis a decade ago.
1
But nobody seems to have seen fit to ask about the Really Dodgy Dossier,
the one put forward by Number 10 in the days immediately following the
9/11 massacre. The
"Responsibility For The Terrorist Atrocities In The United States, 11 September 2001
was put forward by the Prime Minister's Office
2
to show the "proof" of the involvement of Osama
BinLaden in the 9/11 attacks, and was used by the Americans to justify
their invasion of Afghanistan. As all good dodgy dossiers, it implied that
it was the work of the intelligence community; as the US Secretary of State
Colin Powell would go on to describe the Iraq Dodgy Dossier before the
United Nations Security Council session of February 5, 2002:
"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources,
solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are
facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."
But given the outright plagiarism of decade old material that made up the
bulk of the Iraq Dodgy Dossier, it is germane to examine the "facts"
contained in the Afghanistan Dossier to see if it is dodgy too. At least the
Iraq Dodgy Dossier had some academic merit, having been submitted as a
Master's thesis, and published in a small academic journal. Not so of the
Afghanistan Dodgy Dossier; it is a simple collection of 70 points that warrant
scrutiny. It is important to recall that on the day of 9/11, the American
media just passed on what they were being told by their government. (Or in
the case of
General Wesley Clark,
telling the media what his government
was telling him to tell the media, whether he believed it or not.
3)
No proof of bin Laden's guilt was provided by the American government; the
Americans promised to put out a paper that
"describes clearly the evidence",
4
but Number 10 came to their rescue by putting out a dossier instead. This
was the same modus operandi that was used as with the Iraq Dodgy Dossier,
and the world press must have assumed that Her Majesty's Government is
honest and respectable. But is it?
"I have seen absolutely powerful and incontrovertible evidence of his
link to the events of the 11th of September," Blair told the British
Broadcasting Corp.'s Breakfast with Frost program.
In fact, the 70 points, presented without any citations of sources or
references, are mainly unsupported assertions and innuendo. By the very
nature of the 9/11 massacre, the critical link boils down to the link
between bin Laden
5
and the HijackersPatsies. On this, the Afghanistan
Dodgy Dossier devotes a grand total of only 1 of the 70 points, namely:
- Nineteen men have been identified as the hijackers from the
passenger lists of the four planes hijacked on 11 September 2001.
At least three of them have already been positively identified as
associates of Al Qaida. One has been identified as playing key roles
in both the East African embassy attacks and the USS Cole attack.
Investigations continue into the backgrounds of all the hijackers.
The real dodgy nature of the dossier becomes apparent when continued
investigations of the backgrounds of the hijackers revealed that 8 weren't
even in the United States at the time, and are in fact very much
HijackersAliveAndWell. A detailed examination shows that the "proof"
of bin Laden's guilt is distinctly lacking.
6
If the Afghanistan Dossier is Dodgy, then the whole BinLadenClaim
begins to unravel. Although this may not have been the only lie
told by the Prime Minister's Office in making the case for the Americans to
invade Afghanistan,
7
it is by far the most important, as this would raise the following very
pertinent question: if bin Laden didn't do it, who did?
There is much of the 9/11 story that
does not stand up to scrutiny, and the
Bush administration has strenuously fought against any independent or
thorough investigation. If the BBC is truly independent, perhaps it would
investigate if the Anglo-American governments lied about the invasion of
Afghanistan (which had been planned long before 9/11), as well as
investigating who is truly Responsible for the Terrorist Atrocities In The
United States on 11 September 2001.
For the full Really Dodgy Dossier report,
click here.
____
1 Global Outlook. "British Intelligence Iraq Dossier Relies on Recycled Academic Articles" by Glen Rangwala.
2 Prime Minister's Office, London, "Responsibility For The Terrorist Atrocities In The United States, 11 September 2001".
3 New York Times, "Pattern of Corruption" by Paul Krugman. 15 July 2003. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/15/opinion/15KRUG.html
4 WSWS, "White House reneges on proof of bin Laden’s guilt" By Kate Randall. 29 September 2001.
5 "Who
Is Osama Bin Laden?" by Michel Chossudovsky. Centre for Research on
Globalisation (CRG), Montréal. 12 September 2001.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html
6 "George
Bush, Jr., September 11th and the Rule of Law" by Prof. Francis A.
Boyle, February 1, 2002.
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/CrimNukDetSI.html
7 About
90% of heroin on British streets originates in Afghanistan, the prime
minister told the Labour Party Conference in October 2001. (BBC, "UK
drugs trade 'funds Taliban'". 2 October, 2001). Yet at the time, before
the American invasion, the Taliban had in fact banned the cultivation
of opium. Now, 2 years after the American invasion, the production of
opium in Afghanistan is at record levels. See: From The Wilderness
Publications, "The Lies About Taliban Heroin" by Michael C. Ruppert.
October 10, 2001.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/10_10_01_heroin.html; "The
Secret Heroin War" by Adam Porter. October 23, 2001.
http://www.guerrillanews.com/war_on_drugs/doc176.html
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(last modified 2004-01-10 14:31:14)
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