Sections of a 'dodgy dossier' issued by the UK government, which purported to present the latest British intelligence about Iraq, and which had been cited by Tony Blair and Colin Powell as evidence for the need for war, were criticized as plagiarisms. They had been copied without permission from a number of sources including Jane's Intelligence Review and a 12-year-old doctoral thesis of a Californian student that had been published in the US journal Middle East Review of International Affairs. Some sentences were copied word-for-word, and spelling mistakes had been reproduced from the original articles. Downing Street responded by saying that the government had never claimed exclusive authorship and that the information was accurate.
February 8 is the 39th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2003 (MMIII) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The briefing paper entitled Iraq - its infrastructure of concealment, deception and intimidation has come to be known as the Dodgy Dossier. ... The Right Honourable Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953 in Edinburgh, Scotland) is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service. ... Colin Luther Powell, (pronounced koh-lihn, born April 5, 1937) was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving from January 20, 2001 to January 26, 2005 under President George W. Bush. ...