[ian blair] there's no conclusive proof

Thanks for the pic, Conservative Home

I'm not going to name the three august bloggers who commented [to condense them]: "There's absolutely no proof and no shred of evidence of government collusion in 7/7 and its aftermath."

That's true - there is no final proof but as for no shred of evidence, for that to be true - well, that would mean that the whole of what appears below must be dismissed holus bolus.

It forever astounds me why bloggers who themselves do fiskings and investigations of their own using august opinion and circumstantial in large doses, then turn around and demand finite, absolute, lay-it-before-me, cast iron proof for an issue which can never have anything like that - especially if it is investigating organizations with past histories of lying and cover-ups.

The most you're ever going to get is a large collection of circumstantial of varying degrees of veracity. I don't necessarily suggest all the following is conclusive - I do suggest that it is most indicative that not all was above board.

October 8th, 2006 Iain Dale reported:

Sir Ian said the British people should 'brace themselves for a truly appalling act of terror'. He said that following this act of barbarism 'people would be talking quite openly about internment', giving the impression that he would be leading the pro-internment lobby.

The Guardian noted:

The discovery that Khan was reinvestigated the following year appears to contradict claims from MI5 that inquiries about him came to an end in 2004 after it was decided that other terrorism suspects warranted more urgent investigation. It is also likely to lead to scrutiny of MI5's assertion that its officers, who had followed, photographed and secretly recorded Khan, and made other inquiries about him, did not know who he was.

On the surveillance operation which David Davis bought into, one claim was:

But the serious mistake that Panorama has identified is that at the time MI5 never informed West Yorkshire Special Branch about the surveillance operation that ended up in its patch.

A Canada Free Press article [now removed] said that a simultaneous bombing drill was going on, on 7/7, just as NORAD were running a 20 plane simultaneous attack exercise on 911. A deepjournal article says about this:

So it was with the Hinckley attempt to assassinate Ronald Reagan, when a presidential succession exercise was scheduled for the next day, as I showed in my George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography (1992; reprint by Progressive Press, 2004)'.

And continues, on some other matters:

'The one virtuoso performance of July 7 was that of the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the European Central Bank, which flooded equity and capital markets with liquidity through such vehicles as the Plunge Protection Team (PPT), turning a big Wall Street loss into a small gain', writes Webster Tarpley.

A blogger named The Cunning Realist has done some research and proves with some remarkable statistics (1 2) that the Federal Bank of the U.S., shortly before the attacks on July 7, pumped $35 billion into the market to soften eventual blows.

There was even some pre-7/7 speculation going on:

Insider Joseph Farah writes about the successful stock speculations just before 7/7: '[...] it appears some profited by short selling the British pound in the 10 days leading up to the attacks. The pound fell about 6 percent (approximately 1.82 to 1.72) against the dollar for no apparent reason

And so to the day itself, with Blair having flown in from Singapore and ensconced with the G8 leaders in Scotland while Giuliani and Netanyahu in London. J7, who run a nice timeline of the events of 7/7, note:

* Reports of defective trains and firemen at Balham [7.10 a.m.], at Caledonian Road [7.57 a.m.] and at Piccadilly Circus [8.07 a.m.].

7:21am The 4 are caught on CCTV together heading to the platform for the King’s Cross Thameslink train.

8.26am It is claimed the four alleged suicide bombers were recorded on CCTV at King’s Cross station at 8.26 or (later on) 'about 08:30'. None these pictures have never been made public.

8.43am Mossad office in London was alerted to a pending terror strike

8.49am The first report of a major incident at Liverpool Street station was received by the London ambulance service at 0849, within a minute of the blast. [BMJ Diary of Major Incident (PDF)]

9.12am First Alert Call – from Metropolitan Police to TfL and other Gold Partners. [7 July Review Committee Timeline]

9.24am The first reports: “British Transport Police say the incident was possibly caused by a collision between two trains, a power cut or a power cable exploding.

Deepjournal adds:

[In an] article by the Cambridge Evening News in which an eyewitness testifies: 'As they made their way out, a policeman pointed out where the bomb had been. "The policeman said 'mind that hole, that's where the bomb was'. The metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb was underneath the train.

They seem to think the bomb was left in a bag, but I don't remember anybody being where the bomb was, or any bag," he said.' Mark Honigsbaum of The Guardian also talks in this radio report [RealPlayer] with witnesses about a bomb under the rail carriage.

To the timeline again:

8 July Sir Ian Blair, Head of the Metropolitan Police, said no evidence suggested that the attacks involved suicide bombers, but officials hadn't ruled out the possibility. Ian Blair curiously alluded to the number of bombers:

'If London can survive the Blitz it can survive four miserable bombers,' but then hastily added 'I am not saying there were four bombers', words then edited out of subsequent news reports.

9 July All four CCTV cameras on the 30 bus were not working. Al Qaeda take the blame:

MSNBC translator Jacob Keryakes suggests that [the al Qaeda website claim] might be a fake claim, since "This is not something al-Qaida would do." The Australian [story now removed] says: "The language of all the statements has been vague and does not conform to al-Qaeda language and style." The service provider appears to be based in Maryland, VA.

11th July Christophe Chaboud, France's new antiterrorism coordinator, states that he knew ‘the nature of the explosive’ in the London bombings: It ‘'appears to be military, which is very worrisome,’' he said, adding: ‘'We're more used to cells making homemade explosives from chemical substances’ (Le Monde)

12 July On the identification of the four: No DNA tests were necessary to identify them, because the suspected bombers all happened to be carrying personal documents (source: Boston Herald) , which survived the bomb blasts. Blair, in his first report to the Commons, rules out an official inquiry.

13 July Traces of the military explosive ‘C4’ were found at all four blast sites, The Times reported. ‘C4,’ manufactured mostly in the United States, is very deadly and efficient - easy to hide, stable, and often missed by traditional bomb-sniffing detection systems. (United Press International)]

19 July Scotland Yard still has no clue as to what explosives were used, declared the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair.

The Feb 18, 2007 James Casbolt evidence is strange, not so much for this:

No. This whole remote system is quite strange because on the day itself Ian Blair took down all of the mobile phone communications. Everything was switched off.

... but for ths:

The BBC relied exclusively on a testimony given by a Scottish guy. The Scottish guy contradicted himself so many times and yet no one in the media asked him about these contradictory statements.

... and this:

James Casbolt- "So they were told 'this is just a dummy run?"

X10- "It was a dummy run. They were part of the dummy run. They stopped their car just outside of Luton and they were briefed by somebody. When they left Luton of course, they didn't leave Luton at the time described because there was a cock up with train times.

So whether they managed to get to London or not is an unknown because the video camera evidence has been shown to be faulty. There is a problem with the timing on some of the video footage.
James Casbolt- "So the guys on the train who were ex MI 5, ex SAS, they left the explosives on the train and then got off. What were their names again?"

X10- "The ex MI 5 man was codenamed 'J-boy' and Mcgreagor was the ex SAS guy"

James Casbolt- "And then you say they escaped in a Vauxhall cabriolet?"

X10- "Yes and they were driven away from the scene."

Now my reading of X10, in the light of his later rhetoric, is that he was very keen to take the blame from the Muslims. The Shayler opinion, equally suspicious for a different reason, was:

Shayler added that what's even more suspicious is the private security firm in charge of the training drills prior to 7/7 had ties to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Which ties in with Rudi being in London on the day. Fast forward to 12.4.06:

Haroon Rashid Aswat, who was widely touted as being the ringleader for the London bombings, is being extradited without facing charges in the UK. Ex-Justice Dept and terrorist expert John Loftus’ claim that Aswat was an MI6 asset can be judged for yourselves but he has been extradited.

In an interview with Dayside of TV channel Fox he says that the British first told the Americans that Aswat was dead. They believe it and discontinue the lawsuit against him. But also the American Department of Justice is obstructive and 'blocked efforts [to have Aswat convicted] by its prosecutors in Seattle in 2002'.

However, the man surfaces alive and well in South Africa. Loftus: '[...] the Brits know that the CIA wants to get ahold of Haroon. So what happens? He takes off again, goes right to London. He isn't arrested when he lands, he isn't arrested when he leaves'.

Now to Ian Blair himself. Blogger Antagonize wrote:

One need only look to the date of the letter Ian Blair sent to Sir John Gieve in the wake of the murder of an innocent man. The letter asked that the IPCC be given 'no access to the scene at the present time'.

The result was that the IPCC investigation (Stockwell 1, which bizarrely didn't include Blair's own actions in its scope) was delayed for six days, thereby denying the IPCC access to crucial evidence.

Ian Blair's letter to John Gieve was dated 21 July 2005, a day before de Menezes was executed and two days before Ian Blair says that he knew an innocent man had been executed.

When the letter was published after a freedom of information request it was issued with a caveat that: 'The letter is incorrectly dated 21st July. It should have been dated 22nd July when it was delivered.' July 22nd is the same day that de Menezes was executed.

So it would appear that Ian Blair knew exactly what happened on the day it happened and Brian Paddick is the only senior officer that appears to have any interest in telling the truth.

Not only that, but the evidence to prove this exists in the public domain and has done since the publication of Ian Blair's rather carelessly dated letter delaying the IPCC inquiry.

And finally to the current day's news:

IPCC chairman Nick Hardwick said there would be a series of recommendations to try to prevent mistakes being repeated. Mr Hardwick said there had been a "significant corporate failing" on the part of the force. He said the recommendations would focus on failings in the police's strategy and communications. The report is set to contain details of the case not heard during the trial.

The Less Universally Accepted Press claim the report also reveals how officers:

* Used the Prime Minister's name in a bid to stop the IPCC probe

* Failed to pass on alerts from the undercover team that they were tailing an innocent man

* Delayed five hours in deploying ‘specialist' firearms cops who could have taken him alive

* Doctored a Special Branch log of the surveillance operation leading to the shooting, as revealed by the News of the World in January, and

* Fouled up orders to frontline men, ordering that the suspect be "stopped" which was tragically interpreted as "kill him".

Other startling findings include evidence that de Menezes, 27, was high on cocaine when he was gunned down at Stockwell Tube station last July 22.

But the worst news for Sir Ian is the revelation that some of his most senior aides knew of de Menezes' innocence but kept it from him for 12 hours.

An IPCC-linked source told us:

"That's a cast-iron fact. The question is why. The belief in Whitehall is that it's because Sir Ian is notorious for taking bad news very badly—they just couldn't face telling him so they left it until Saturday morning."

An IPCC source said their report also spotlights "gross negligence" of the SO12 watchers' team leader in failing to tell bosses one of his men had definitely ruled out de Menezes as the suspect. It was one of this group, says the report, that later deliberately doctored their official surveillance log to suggest they HADN'T identified de Menezes as the target.

The commission says loose language used by Yard commanders in communicating with officers on the chase probably condemned de Menezes to death. As he walked into Stockwell station, Commander Cressida Dick ordered that he must be "stopped" getting on a train. Another officer claimed she added "at all costs".

Commander Dick told the IPCC she meant the suspect should simply be apprehended. But on the scene her officers took it to mean death.

Conservative Home reports David Davis' words:

"There is something wrong with a process of accountability that, two years on, continues to prevent the publication of the review of the events leading up to 22 July 2005.

I suggest that could equally apply to the whole sorry business of 7/7.