The note of panic is
palpable. “What do you mean, there’s no smoking gun?
Haven’t MI6 got anything? No photographs? No defectors?
TB is expecting a dossier next week. We promised. He said
the Americans liked the last one — quoted everywhere,
robust stuff, saved the CIA from having to go public with
any sources. So they want another one — Colin Powell’s
thinking of a spot of show and tell at the UN, and wants
to point to independent work by the Brits. So, we better
get something — and quick.”
There was a nervous silence. With so many spokesmen off
on crash courses in war briefing, the communications unit
was understaffed. Apart from a former foot-and-mouth
specialist from the old Min of Ag (chosen because he once
worked on botulism), two work-experience students from
Keele and a filing clerk, doubling as a liaison officer,
spin was thin on the ground. “Well, one of you had
better put something together. Get on the internet. Just
type in ricin and Iraq and see what you find on Google. 20
pages, at least. By tomorrow.”
From such small corns do mighty bunions grow.
Governmental plagiarism is nothing new: political parties
have been stealing each other’s manifestos for years.
Whitehall has cabinets of recyclable advice, to be passed
down — with the insertion of a topical reference —
from one minister to the next, or, if sufficiently bland,
to be used interchangeably for policy on waiting lists,
missile contracts or arts subsidies. But plagiarising
intelligence is more difficult. There isn’t much of it
around. And the best is all secret — not easy for a
media studies undergraduate to prise out of GCHQ
overnight.
But what TB wants, TB gets. A Downing Street unit is
there to provide it. And as any student knows, extracts
from American social anthropology dissertations add the
required note of pedantic obfuscation to any jejune essay,
with a provenance that is virtually undetectable. What
better way to triple the value of intelligence assets with
a thesis from California? It was regrettable that the
author had so obvious an Arab name: far less convincing as
a footnote than a reference to the trajectory of a
military satellite. But perhaps the report could simply
say it was a mix of private and public. Isn’t that the
normal pattern nowadays?
“Looks fine. TB will like it. Don’t worry about Jane’s
— they won’t complain, even if they notice. Only
Americans sue. And this probably won’t go anywhere near
the Yanks. Anyway, when is it that Powell is making his
speech? He’ll just talk about Iraqi propaganda and
deceptive reports to the UN. This will be fine for our
side.”
