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Two reports and no progress

Posted May 11th, 2006 by Davide Simonetti
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Two long-awaited investigations into the London bombings of July 7 came out today. The Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ICS) produced its report which can be downloaded as a pdf from here. It should make interesting reading but it is already bringing up many more questions into the about the atrocity and is likely to increase rather than decrease demands for a full public inquiry. The key findings of the report are summarised here. Also the famous and largely leaked ‘narrative’ of the bombings has been released too. There is an at-a-glance review of its findings here. You can also download a pdf of the whole document from the same site. From the ISC investigation, we get the most information (such as it is).

“The fact that the attacks were not prevented shows that there were – and are – clearly areas for improvement, but overall, the Committee have found that there were no culpable failures by the security and intelligence Agencies.”Source

Well I would suggest that knowing three out of the four bombers (Operation Crevice had been following Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzhad Tanweer for months and Jermaine Lindsay was also known to them tangentially) and allowing them to continue after months of surveillance is a culpable failure. So was ignoring warnings from America and France that an attack was likely and still reducing the security alert from SEVERE GENERAL to SUBSTANTIAL at the time of a G8 summit in the UK. And what were we doing with an ineffective alert system anyway? In the report there is very little mention of what might have caused the radicalisation of Muslim youth in Britain and no mention at all of Iraq. Just this passage touches on the issue:

"And a better understanding of radicalisation of British citizens is needed if effective strategies are to be developed to counter it. Neither the potential speed of radicalisation, nor the fact that British citizens could become radicalised to the point of suicide, were understood. The Committee are concerned that this could have had an impact on the ability of authorities to respond.

"On these points we are assured that they are already being addressed and that lessons have been learned."

A full public inquiry might give us a better understanding of what radicalises British citizens. Until then, how can we believe that “lessons have been learned”, particularly when another war on an Islamic country looks ever more likely.

As we digest the information contained in these two reports, the new Home Secretary has already dismissed calls for a full public inquiry on the grounds that it would divert resources from security, despite a growing demand from the public and both opposition parties (the Tories are calling for a full independent inquiry).

However, survivor Rachel North told the BBC News website she was "staggered" there would be no public inquiry and dismissed a report by the Intelligence and Security Committee.

"These meetings that led to these reports took place behind closed doors," she said.
"They were internal investigations and I am not surprised that the politicians and security services have examined their work in secret and subsequently found themselves not to blame.

"It is the public - not the spooks or politicians - who walk the streets, take the buses and tubes each day, and wonder what risks they run.

"The public seem to have so many unanswered questions. I find it staggering that there is no public inquiry to answer them."
BBC

We already knew that the attacks did not come “out of the blue” as then Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, asserted (and we have been not been told why he made this false claim). These two reports highlight more than ever the need for a full public inquiry into July 7. All that we have learned from the ISC findings is that the security services had insufficient resources which contributed to the atrocity. The ‘narrative’ tells us even less, merely following the course of events as narratives do.