Monday 29 May 2006

Mind the Gaps

The discrepancies, distortions, lies and inconsistent reporting of July 7th have made it extremely difficult to see how anybody can say with any conviction exactly what happened that day and who perpetrated those atrocities. The Government Narrative is full of vague assumptions yet is supposed to be a definitive account. The July Seventh Truth Campaign has put together a list of the most obvious errors and inconsistencies in the official account so far.

There are so many gaps, we had to split the document into two parts. Mind The Gaps Part 1 is here and Mind The Gaps Part 2 is here.

Meanwhile, here are just a few of the gaps you'll find listed:

THE IMPOSSIBLE TRAIN JOURNEY

It was originally announced that the men had taken the 0740 train from Luton to Kings Cross Thameslink on the morning of July 7th. An eyewitness later stated that she had been at Luton station that morning and that the 0740 never ran that day. Thameslink Rail later confirmed that not only had the 0740 been cancelled but that all trains that morning ran with heavy delays due to problems further up the line. This confirmation first came from Marie Bernes at Thameslink Customer Relations and then from Chris Hudson, the Communications Manager for Thameslink Rail at Luton.

When it was later reported that the men had taken the 0748 train, it was found that this scenario could not be the correct one either. The 0748 did not reach Kings Cross Thameslink in time for the men to have made the journey to Kings Cross station to have been captured on CCTV “shortly before 8.30am” as the police stated. The 0748 did not reach Thameslink until 8.42am; seven minutes after the Eastbound Circle Line train had departed from Kings Cross, which later exploded between Liverpool St. and Aldgate.

The 0730 train actually left Luton station at 7.42am. Again, this train arrived at Thameslink station four minutes after the first of the bombed tubes had already departed Kings Cross.

The men were shown on a single CCTV image taken from outside Luton station, apparently entering the station six seconds before 7.22am, according to the timestamp on the image. On this basis, the earliest train they could have caught would have been the train that left Luton at 7.25am. This train arrived at King's Cross Thameslink at 8.23am.

The Government narrative of the London Bombings states that the men caught the non-existent 0740 train and that it arrived at Thameslink at 8.23am. The narrative then says that the men were caught on CCTV at King's Cross Thameslink at 8.26am, whereas it was previously reported that this sighting had occurred at Kings Cross mainline station.

The narrative goes on to say that the men were seen again, four minutes later at Kings Cross mainline, where they proceeded to split up in different directions, giving the impression that each man was off to board a tube train. The narrative does not state whether it was a sighting by a CCTV camera or a witness. The quickest route from Thameslink to the tube lines is through an underground subway but the narrative does not specify their alleged route from King's Cross Thameslink station to the mainline station.

"The 4 are captured on CCTV at 08.26am on the concourse close to the Thameslink platform and heading in the direction of the London Underground system."

However, if they were seen on the concourse of Kings Cross mainline, like the narrative says, then this suggests that the men did not take the subway but took the overgound route, since the subway leads directly to the tube platforms. It is unlikely they would have made the somewhat senseless decision to come back out from the tube platforms and make their way all the way back up to the main concourse just to go back down again and board the trains.

But confusingly, the subway route seems to be the only one which could have got them to Kings Cross quickly enough to have taken the trains they are alleged to have been on. Furthermore, the subway from Thameslink only gives access to the Victoria, Northern and Piccadilly lines. Therefore, this route would only have facilitated the journey of Lindsay, who is alleged to have boarded the Piccadilly Line train; the other two men who were alleged to have been on the Circle Line trains would have had to have found an alternative route to the Circle Line platforms, necessitating their splitting up and not being seen together.

If we bear in mind that the eastbound Circle Line train left first, at 8.35am, and that Tanweer was reported to have still been on the Thameslink platform at 8.26am, they would have had to have moved at a fast pace for him to have caught this train. We must also factor in that the narrative states:

"At around 08.30am, 4 men fitting their descriptions are seen hugging. They appear happy, even euphoric. They then split up. Khan must have gone to board a westbound Circle Line train, Tanweer an eastbound Circle Line train and Lindsay a southbound Piccadilly Line train. Hussain also appeared to walk towards the Piccadilly Line entrance."

TFL Journey Planner advises to allow 6 minutes to transfer between King's Cross Thameslink station and the mainline in the rush-hour, which doesn't allow sufficient time for the accused to transfer between the Thameslink and the mainline stations.

There are no reported witness sightings of four men with large rucksacks running. It is extremely difficult to see how Tanweer got to the Circle Line platform so quickly, if he either had to go overground or take a complicated journey to the Circle Line platform from another of the only platforms he could have reached via the Thameslink subway.

In conclusion, the incorrect train given by the narrative cannot be put down to simple error.

Even if the men had taken a train from Luton which ran that morning, it still would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them to have been sighted at Kings Cross at the time they were said to have been seen, or for them to have caught the underground trains which were later bombed.The narrative even says there were witnesses on the non-existent train who believe they saw the men. How could this be so when there was no such train? The anomalies in the narrative account regarding the train, its arrival time and how the men could have been sighted at Kings Cross only serve to cause much confusion.

THE SIMULTANEOUS ANTI-TERROR DRILL

A company named Visor Consultants was running an exercise for an unnamed company which involved the scenario of simultaneous bombs going off at the time when London actually did come under attack. The Managing Director of Visor, Peter Power, gave an interview on the afternoon of July 7th where he said:
"At half past nine this morning we were actually running an exercise for a company of over a thousand people in London based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning, so I still have the hairs on the back of my neck standing up right now." (Download MP3 audio file of this interview)

Despite this coincidence, sensationalized by Peter Power himself, he admitted later on that the drill had not completely mirrored the actual events, and had also involved mainline stations as targets. He also expressed surprise that people would be interested in the remarkable comments he made in his interview and also attempted to minimise the similarities between the exercise and the actual attacks. Despite the fact that he had said the exercise involved the bombs going off at ‘precisely’ the railway stations where the attacks had occurred, he later pronounced that in fact only two of the locations had been similar. However, even after downplaying the parallels, he went on to state "the timing and script was nonetheless, a little disconcerting".

Terror drills are not unknown in London, but other coincidences may be the involvement of Peter Power in several high profile tragic events before 7/7, such as the Kings Cross fire of 1987 and the Libyan Embassy siege of 1984, and the strong links that he has with the police and the Government.

He is a former Detective Inspector in counter-terrorism and is a close associate of Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Chief. He was also selected by the Government to write the Best Management Practice Guide on Crisis & Business Continuity Planning & Risk Management.

Peter Power also has connections to former New York Mayor, Rudi Giuliani; he served on the Advisory Board to the Canadian Centre for Emergency preparedness(CCEP), alongside the senior Vice President of Giuliani and Partners, Richard Sheirer, who was also Director of the New York Mayor’s office of Emergency Management, overseeing the rescue and recovery operations following the September 11th attacks.

Giuliani and partners is a security consultantcy and Investment Bank and Mr. Giuliani himself, by another coincidence, happened to be in London for a conference and just yards away from Liverpool Street station when the blast occurred there on the morning of July 7th.

Peter Power acts as an independent security consultant to the media examining the impact of terrorism on London. It would not be unrealistic that he would be conducting an anti-terror exercise, but it is strange that it happened to be on the same day, at the same time, and involving the same stations. Peter Power himself admits this, even when attempting to downplay the coincidence. It arouses suspicion when considering the ‘Wargames’ exercises of the morning of September 11th, involving the same scenarios that later occurred. The chances of these situations being simple coincidence appear quite slim.

THE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE OF THE ATTACKS

Terrorism experts in the USA reported that they had been told by “intelligence sources” that at least one person had been warned that a terrorist attack was about to take place. The person they referred to was the Israeli Finance Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who was due to attend an economic conference in a hotel near Liverpool Street station.
"Just before the first blast, Netanyahu got a call from the Israeli Embassy telling him to stay in his hotel room. The hotel is located next to the subway station where the first attack occurred and he did stay put and shortly after that, there was the explosion."
Source: WTVQ

The Associated Press broke the story, and in a follow-up report, stated that the story had been denied by the Israeli Government who said that Netanyahu received the warning after the blasts occurred. However, the head of Mossad had said in an interview with a German newspaper
"The Mossad office in London received advance notice about the attacks, but only six minutes before the first blast. As a result, it was impossible to take any action to prevent the blasts."

Other reports even claim that the warning was not received minutes before the attacks, but days before.

Netanyahu himself also denied, though, that he had received any such warning, calling the reports "entirely false". Although this report claims that the AP "quickly replaced the story" but they never actually retracted it.

The following story can still be found on the Israel National News web site:
Israel Was Warned Ahead of First Blast10:43 Jul 08, '05 / 1 Tammuz 5765
(IsraelNN.com)


Army Radio quoting unconfirmed reliable sources reported a short time ago that Scotland Yard had intelligence warnings of the attacks a short time before they occurred.

The Israeli Embassy in London was notified in advance, resulting in Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu remaining in his hotel room rather than make his way to the hotel adjacent to the site of the first explosion, a Liverpool Street train station, where he was to address an economic summit.

At present, train and bus service in London have been suspended following the series of attacks. No terrorist organization has claimed responsibility at this time.
Israeli officials stress the advanced Scotland Yard warning does not in any way indicate Israel was the target in the series of apparent terror attacks.


If there was advance knowledge of the attacks, even if they could not have been prevented, surely it would have been more constructive to have warned TFL Managers and people who could have worked to minimize the resulting confusion – if not the destruction - rather than a politician who was still in his hotel room and would not have been on a tube train that morning.

For the comprehensive list of anomalies in the official account of the July 7th attacks, see here and here.

The July Seventh Truth Campaign believes there are far too many errors and inconsistencies in the account to simply be attributed to lazy reporting and beaurocratic incompetence. Why does the narrative state the accused men travelled to London on a train which did not run? Did certain people have prior knowledge of 7/7 and if so, why? How could the former head of the CIA state that they had recovered timing devices from the blast sites, yet it later be stated that the bombs were detonated manually? Why was it reported by the authorities that military grade explosives were used, only for this to be swiftly denied within a couple of days? Why does the narrative state that it is still not known what type of explosives were used almost a year later? How is it that the narrative can accept there is no CCTV showing Shehzad Tanweer on the tube platform or the Aldgate train and no witness to attest to his presence, yet state that he 'must have been' there? How were the men identified so quickly on the basis of a couple of credit cards?

The narrative should have provided clear answers; instead it has only raised even more questions. It is not an adequate account of who bombed London on July 7th, how they did it and why.

No comments: