Doctor Ibrahim al-Marashi is an associate professor at

California State University, San Marcos California State University San Marcos (CSUSM or Cal State San Marcos) is a public university in San Marcos, California. It was founded in 1989 as the 21st campus in the 23-campus California State University (CSU) system. CSUSM offers 43 bachel ...

, researching modern Iraqi history. He holds a

doctor of philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...

in history from

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

(2004), where his thesis was on the Iraqi

Invasion of Kuwait The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was an operation conducted by Iraq on 2 August 1990, whereby it invaded the neighboring State of Kuwait, consequently resulting in a seven-month-long Iraqi military occupation of the country. The invasion and Ira ...

; a master's degree in political science from

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

, which he had received in 1997; and a bachelor's degree in history and Near Eastern studies from the University of California Los Angeles. He is best known as the author of an article which was

plagiarised Plagiarism is the fraudulent representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 '' Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close imitation of the language and thought ...

by the British government in a 2003 briefing document entitled ''Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation'' (see

Dodgy Dossier ''Iraq – Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation'' (more commonly known as the ''Iraq Dossier'', the ''February Dossier'' From pages 35–42 o"The Decision to go to War in Iraq: Ninth Report of Session 2002-03" (PDF). or th ...

). This document was a follow-up to the earlier

September Dossier ''Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Assessment of the British Government'', also known as the ''September Dossier'', was a document published by the British government on 24 September 2002 on the same day of a recall of Parliament to dis ...

, both of which concerned

Iraq and weapons of mass destruction Iraq actively researched and later employed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from 1962 to 1991, when it destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile and halted its biological and nuclear weapon programs as required by the United Nations Security Coun ...

and were ultimately used by the government to justify its involvement in the

2003 Invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...

. Large portions of al-Marashi's paper were quoted verbatim by then

United States Secretary of State The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...

Colin Powell Colin Luther Powell ( ; April 5, 1937 – October 18, 2021) was an American politician, statesman, diplomat, and United States Army officer who served as the 65th United States Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African ...

to the U.N. General Assembly. The material plagiarised from Marashi's work and copied nearly verbatim into the "Dodgy Dossier" was six paragraphs from his article ''Iraq's Security & Intelligence Network: A Guide & Analysis'', which was published in the September 2002 issu

of the ''

Middle East Review of International Affairs ''Middle East Review of International Affairs'' (MERIA) was a quarterly, peer-reviewed, journal on Middle East issues founded by the late Barry Rubin and edited by Dr. Jonathan Spyer. The journal is no longer active; the last published issue was ...

''. Tony Blair's office ultimately apologised to Marashi for its actions, but not to the MERIA journal. Marashi worked as a visiting faculty member at

Sabancı University Sabancı University ( tr, Sabancı Üniversitesi), established in 1994, is a young foundation university located on a 1.26 million squaremeter campus which is about 40 km from Istanbul's city center. Its first students matriculated in 1999. ...

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

from 2004 until 2006. Prior to this he was a research associate at the ''

Center for Nonproliferation Studies The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), formerly known as the Monterey Institute of International Studies, is an American graduate school of Middlebury College, a private college in Middlebury, Vermont. Established ...

'' (CNS) at the

Monterey Institute of International Studies The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS), formerly known as the Monterey Institute of International Studies, is an American graduate school of Middlebury College, a private college in Middlebury, Vermont. Established ...

, as well as a lecturer at the

Center for Contemporary Conflict The Center on Contemporary Conflict (CCC) is the primary research wing of the Naval Postgraduate School's Department of National Security Affairs. The CCC conducts research on current and emerging national security threats, sharing its findings w ...

(CCC). Additionally, he had previously worked at the ''Center for Middle Eastern Studies'' at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

on a project classifying captured Iraqi state documents. He has lived at various times in

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

and

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

References

External links

Dan Snow on Channel 4 News report on the plagiarism
in ''

'', vol. 6, no. 3, September 2002
MERIA journal's response to the plagiarismVideo: ''Ibrahim'' explains how the plagiarism was discovered and subsequent events in his life—a fascinating story.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marashi, Ibrahim Al Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Alumni of the University of Oxford 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers Georgetown University alumni Harvard University staff American Shia Muslims Iraqi Shia Muslims Iraqi expatriates in the United Kingdom Iraqi emigrants to the United States University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of Pennsylvania faculty American male non-fiction writers Historians of Iraq

See also

References

External links