No Public Inquiry - Some Reasons
Posted December 17th, 2005 by quarsan
The official reason is that holding an inquiry would 'distract' from fighting terrorism, thus making those advocating an examination to be aiding and abetting terrorists.
Or is there another reason? Could it be that it's to save face?
Two of the four suicide bombers who killed 52 people in the July 7 attacks were scrutinised by MI5 last year but were not considered to be a threat - source
Providing a timeline will not answer serious questions about the bombings, the Independent helpfully list some of them:
- Why was the terror alert downgraded before the beginning of July?
- Was Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, guilty of complacency by insisting before the explosions that the capital's security was "the envy of the policing world"?
- Why did the security services lose track of Mohammad Sidique Khan?
- Was a vital piece of intelligence about Khan, who is believed to have made contact with terrorists overseas, overlooked?
- Was there a fifth bomber? More explosives were found inside a rucksack in the car left by the bombers at Luton station, suggesting a fifth man could have been involved.
- Have police resolved this question? And if there is a fifth man, is he still at large?
- Were the July 7 bombers linked to the alleged July 21 attackers?
- Could a third cell still be at large?
- If there was a connection, does it mean there is a wider loose network of terrorists lying low plotting their next outrage?
- Who was ultimately behind the attacks?
- What do the security services know about him and how firm do they believe were the contacts between the bombers and senior figures in the al-Qa'ida network?
- Were mistakes made in the handling of the disaster?
- Why were the explosions on the Tube put down to electrical failures minutes after the real explanation should have been apparent?
- Given that the final blast took place on a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square, was it a mistake to keep buses running after the Tube blasts?
- Were the attacks motivated by the Iraq war? This is the question ministers are desperate to avoid. They deny any link can be made, but Muslim leaders insist it cannot be dismissed as a factor. Khan claimed in a video message that the attacks were in response to "atrocities" committed by the West against Muslims.
Not one of these questions will be asked or answered under current government policy.
Does the "simulation
Does the "simulation exercise" of a terror attack on multiple tube stations, that was happening on 7th July as the real attacks occured, have a baring on any investigation into the attack?
A similar "simulation exercise" is known to have also happened on the morning of 9/11, this time running through the effects of a hijacked plane being flown into a building.
An overview of both simulations, which closely mirrored the real events as they unfolded, is here. It includes a transcript of an interview with Peter Power, manager of Visor Consultants, a private firm hired by the London police, who explained in an interview granted to the BBC on July 7, how he had organized and controlled that very day an exercise in which attacks were simulated at the request of an anonymous client.
"P.Power: At 9:30 this morning we were focused on our exercise at the request made by a society that has more than 1000 people in London. The action was about the explosion of synchronized bombs in subway stations, the same stations in which real explosions did take place that morning. I’m still shocked.
ITV: To be more precise: you mean, you were designing an exercise to know how to handle such a situation and that was what really happened while you were working on the exercise?
P.Power: Exactly. It was about 9:30 a.m. We had designed that training exercise for a society, which I will not identify for obvious reasons but they are now watching television and they know it. We were in a room full of people whose job was to manage a crisis. That was the first meeting. In five minutes we reached the conclusion that what was happening was real and we implemented all crisis-management procedures to go from slow to rapid reaction and so on (...) [1]"
It is only right for questions to be asked and answers given.
Excellent. Thanks you. Going
Excellent. Thanks you. Going to quote your post in full on my blog...
Meanwhile. Myself and several other July 7th survivors are bashing away for a public enquiry and for people to write to their MPs or sign a petition ( or both) http://www.petitiononline.com/July7th/petition.html
http://www.writetothem.com/
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-1937542_2,00.html - survivor's demands
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1938212,00.html - a possible reason why Blair is not mad keen to have an independent enquiry
http://rachelnorthlondon.blogspot.com/2005/12/weve-only-just-begun.html - too bad, I'm not shutting up
http://rachelnorthlondon.blogspot.com/2005/12/survivors-anger-at-post-77-let-down.html - and nor are other peopel from the bombed Kings Cross train
http://rachelnorthlondon.blogspot.com/2005/12/reasons-why-you-might-want-to-demand.html - pause for thought
Sorry for link frenzy. Am trying to keep this front of mind and the more voices shouting, the better