By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer

                      LONDON - A dossier released by the British government purporting to show
                      how Iraq is deceiving U.N. weapons inspectors was based on old
                      information, including an article by an American university lecturer, a British
                      news program said Thursday.

                      Channel 4 News said the 19-page report — entitled "Iraq: Its Infrastructure
                      of Concealment Deception and Intimidation" and posted Monday on Prime
                      Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites)'s Web site — contained large chunks
                      lifted from other sources.

                      Channel 4 said the "bulk" of the document was copied from three articles,
                      including one in Jane's Intelligence Review and another by Ibrahim
                      al-Marashi, a research associate at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies
                      in Monterey, California, that appeared last September in the Middle East
                      Review of International Affairs.

                      In response to the Channel 4 report, Blair's 10 Downing St. office said the
                      dossier had been "put together by a range of government officials." The
                      office said, "We consider the text as published accurate."

                      Julian Rush, a Channel 4 reporter, compared a six-paragraph passage from
                      al-Marashi's article with an identical passage in the government's dossier.
                      Other passages contain very minor alterations, and typographical errors in
                      al-Marashi's article are repeated in the dossier.

                      Al-Marashi said he had not been approached by the British government
                      about using his research,

                      "It was a shock to me," he told The Associated Press.

                      The article looked at Saddam's security apparatus over the past three
                      decades, and drew on a range of sources including information that was
                      recent at the time of publication in September, al-Marashi said.

                      The government's dossier purported to detail ways in which the Iraqi regime
                      has blocked the work of weapons inspectors currently in Iraq. The
                      government said it was based on "a number of sources, including
                      intelligence material," but did not give details.

                      The dossier said that while the United Nations (news - web sites) has only
                      108 inspectors in Iraq, Saddam has 20,000 intelligence officers "engaged in
                      disrupting their inspections and concealing weapons of mass destruction."

                      Among its claims, it said Iraqi security agents had bugged every room and
                      telephone of the weapons inspectors in Baghdad and hidden documents in
                      Iraqi hospitals, mosques and homes.

                      U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) cited the dossier on
                      Wednesday as he addressed the United Nations with evidence of Iraq's
                      weapons programs.

                      Chris Aaron, editor of Jane's Intelligence Review, told Channel 4 he had not
                      been asked for permission to use material from his article in the dossier.

                      Al-Marashi said he was not angry at the copying, but hoped the British
                      government would now credit his work "out of academic decency."

                      "I hope they do the right thing," he said.

                      __

                      On the Net:

                      Government Iraq dossier:
                      http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page7111.asp

                      Ibrahim al-Marashi's article:
                      http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue3/jv6n3a1.html