Talk:2004 Iraq document leak

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Politics of the United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Politics of the United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject Politics of the United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject Politics of the United KingdomPolitics of the United Kingdom articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Iraq

	Iraq portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Iraq, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Iraq on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.IraqWikipedia:WikiProject IraqTemplate:WikiProject IraqIraq articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

[Untitled][edit]

There are actually 11 of these, total (as of June 18, 2005):

http://notesfromtherealworld.blogspot.com/2005/06/pile-of-smoking-guns_13.html

Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 02:11, 2005 Jun 19 (UTC)

The "Crawford Document" listed there seems not to exist? What is it supposed to be? The link provided discusses other documents, already known.

This page is superfluous[edit]

No new documents were made available by AP on 18 June 2005. It's simply wrong. The documents listed at the link above are:

1) The "Crawford Document" - seems not to exist? What is it supposed to be? The link provided discusses other documents, already known.

2) The "Goldsmith Memo" - the summary of UK Attorney General Lord Goldsmith's legal advice on the Iraq war: leaked April 27, 2005 ( [1], google on |leaked "only be sustainable if there are strong factual grounds"| for plenty of collaborating pages. )

3 - 8) The six cabinet papers leaked to Michael Smith who published his story on them in the Telegraph, Sept 18, 2004, which have been available from cryptome and its mirror since Oct 5th 2004

9) The briefing paper for the DSM meeting: published Sunday Times, Jun 12th 2005

10) The DSM itself, published May 1 2005, Sunday Times

11) Elizabeth Wilmhurst's resignation letter, leaked by at least 24th March 2005 ([2]) or perhaps even earlier (a Guardian story [3] apparently from 24th Feeb 2005 seems to have a quote from the redacted part - perhaps they mis-dated the story, I don't know).

As can be seen, and as the article currently says, none of these documents were leaked, or first published, on June 18, 2005.

Shouldn't the contents here just be merged with the UK_Cabinet_Office_Documents page, and the title of this page quietly forgotten about?

Controversy over "typed copies"[edit]

Isn't there now a lot of doubt on the veracity of these due to the report that these are:

    "typed copies of six recently obtained internal British government documents"

It's the CBS-Memogate all over again, unless they release images of the REAL documents. From what I've read elsewhere, there's some hooey about how the reporter(s) destroyed the original images?? --Sturmde 14:17, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I have read that the reporter supposedly destroyed the originals due to concern for his source; however I believe a senior :british official has confirmed their validity.--Crucible Guardian 20:00, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

High-level officials confirm authenticity of documents[edit]

High-ranking current and former members of both in the British and U.S. governments have reportedly confirmed the memo's authenticity. [[4]]

A senior British official who spoke on condition of anonymity reviewed the copies and said their content appeared authentic.[[5]]

Note that Bush instantly challenged the veracity of the supposed military documents on CBS's ill-fated "scoop"; Blair, by contrast, has had weeks to issue a denial about the veracity of these reports, and has chosen not to do so. BrandonYusufToropov 14:27, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Your first link refers to a different set of documents and the downing street memo - a record of a meeting with dearlove et al. The second link is from the associated press and as they are distributing the documents I'm not sure that can count either.

However - they were originally leaked to the Telegraph by Micheal Smith - the telegraph's defence correspondent. Smith has published columns like this which has the feel of having friends in SIS. this seems to imply that the source has a history of taking the services' sides on issues such as David Shayler. I suggest that the source is probably likely to have friends who could furnish such information - or even if not authentic documents would publish them on behalf of. The British government blamed SIS for some of Iraq - that must have put their backs up. Is the appearance of these now meant as an attack on the US administration - or defending SIS against British politicians? Secretlondon 15:58, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Here in the States, when the White House can find any excuse the question the provenance of a damaging leak, it generally does so quickly (though not always persusasively). Is it fair to assume that a fabricated series of documents would have been challenged by this point by someone at #10? BrandonYusufToropov 16:24, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

But if the leak is in the foreign media does denying their existance draw attention to them? The British state has a policy of not confirming or denying anything intelligence/security based. I'm not sure what the normal protocol is for leaks. Secretlondon 16:53, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This doesn't seem to have made any of the UK media - the news is that the actual docs have been leaked. Previously the telegraph has published stuff *about* them and has claimed to have seen them. [6] is the BBC saying that US bloggers are trying to get the US media to take note - the links on that page show that the BBC hasn't written about the new memos itself... Secretlondon 17:31, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

More specific name[edit]

You need to move this to a more specific name. God knows how many documents the Cabinet office has... Dunc|☺ 15:46, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

yes totally. Secretlondon 15:58, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Been moved to Iraq document leak 18 June 2005 which is literal but more sensible than before. Secretlondon 16:18, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Downing Street memo has a lot of overlap with this article. Secretlondon 17:43, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Redirection[edit]

As it is now, this page is caught in a redirection loop and the current title is horrid. JoeHenzi 18:25, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

(Drily:) I wonder if perhaps it was an intentional attempt to keep people from reading the article. BrandonYusufToropov

I have restored this article to "Iraq document leak 18 June 2005" (which may or may not be the ideal title), and I kindly but firmly request participants to discuss further renames on the talk page first. Thanks. -- Viajero | Talk 18:33, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

(Hi Viajero long time no see!) Someone on the Downing Street Memo page says that the documents were available on Cryptome long before 18 June. This makes me even more minded to move this to a more sensible title. I'm just not sure why we differentiate these docs from all the other documents that have been leaked in the UK. Secretlondon 19:17, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Merge with Downing Street memo article?[edit]

I'm suggesting over on Talk:Downing Street memo that this article and that one be merged. I'd be interested in hearing what people think about that, either here or over there. -- John Callender 15:19, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I say no. The content ad cotroversial surroudig the dowimg street memo is sustatial eough to warrat a full ad idepedat article. (my keyoard is flakig o me) Also, there is a lot of iformatio that applies uqiqely to the dowig street memo - that is - that does ot apply to these documets, ad vice-versa. furthermore, they're purported leak dates are more tha 2 moths apart. I reality, as has ee poited out aove, the leak dates are more tha half a year apart. i sum, they are idepedat sources with idepedat ifo ad idepedat cotroversy ad o merits of sigificace, a separate article is warrated. IMHO. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 00:08, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

If we say that the Downing Street Memo is an important enough leaked British govt. document that it deserves its own page then we still need to have a page describing *all* the leaks on Iraq from the UK. I really can't see why the ones that the AP noticed on the 18 June deserve their own article. I'm not even sure we've picked up all the leaks. Secretlondon 19:27, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm not arguing against giving the issue prominence. I just think that, conceptually, it feels like one article to me, rather than a pair of them. Maybe expand this into one main article on all the documents, with the DSM getting a summarized section, and a link to its own page for more detail? -- John Callender 23:08, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Iraq document leak 18 September 2004. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20050617033709/http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Backstory_Confirming_the_Downing_Street_0614.html to http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Backstory_Confirming_the_Downing_Street_0614.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 16:38, 14 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 8 external links on Iraq document leak 18 September 2004. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 19:40, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]