The conclusions from Crevice - what went wrong?

What went wrong? The bitter conclusion from the Crevice trial was that, if the security services had spotted the clues, the 7/7 London bombings could have been prevented.

Vikram Dodd, writing in The Guardian analyses the systemic failings of the security services that let the 7/7 bombers, Mohammad Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, slip through their grasp.

Before the bombings, the security services had made several false assumptions. They assumed that the threat was primarily from north African jihadists, loosely inspired by al-Qaeda ideology, and they discounted the prospect of British-born suicide bombers...

Counter-terrorism is one of the most important areas of government activity, yet it is one of the least scrutinised - and the latest revelations suggest that what scrutiny there is does not work

With all the papers in agreement that mistakes were made, the question is, what should be done now?

Calling for an inquiry into the mistakes made, Rachel North, a survivor of the 7/7 attacks, and now a prominent blogger, writes:

We all make mistakes. I do not blame people in the security services for their mistakes and failure to use intelligence. It is failing to admit mistakes and then trying to cover up mistakes which is unforgivable and inexcusable.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, writing in The Times this morning also called for an independent inquiry, as have the Lib Dems

But would public safety be assisted by such an inquiry? Today’s Leader article in The Times thinks not:

There must be a transparent accounting for this failure, but a full public inquiry is a luxury that we cannot now afford. Preventing the next attack is a more urgent priority, and the essential lessons to be learnt from Operation Crevice are, regrettably, already clear...

The argument for a full and open-ended public inquiry is weak. Such inquiries, from Bloody Sunday onwards, have obscured as much as they have clarified. In this case, continuing reporting restrictions on separate but related terrorism investigations would sharply curtail an inquiry’s power to call witnesses and elicit new evidence

But if you disagree with that, you might want to sign this petition.

Murad Ahmed

Comments

[jamal]

Just as we didnt need the stephen lawrence inquiry to tell us the police were racist, not that anything has changed since, I don’t see what an enquiry aims to achieve, particularly when it will be very expensive and the money could instead be spent elsewhere maintaining the public sector or on actually improving security strategies.

We already know the security forces fail us as shown by the consistent rise in violent crime, and when they do act its usually on incorrect information, as we saw in Forest Gate and with the Police murder of Jean Charles de Menzes. Although, Rachel North is explicit about the difference between Muslims and Terrorists, she constantly refers to Muslims and therefore the subliminal link between the two opposites gets across. If she really wanted to make this clear, she would have instead supported her point by highlighting the recent report that points out that of a total 500 terrorist attacks in Europe in 2006, one was attributed to those claiming it was committed in the name of Islam?

The Inquiries Act 2005, means the scope of any inquiry can be limited and must be neither public nor independent. But if Rachel North continues to request a full inquiry, then she should also be supporting the July 7th Truth Campaign which believes that the complaints and allegations of a conspiracy made by the recent ‘fertiliser plot’ defendants via Imran Khan’s statement be addressed.

Hence this call for a 7/7 inquiry keeps Muslims in the news and fuels the moral panic about the spread of Islam, the misconceptions about the true extent of ‘Islamist terror’, and the subsequent rise in Islamophobia and racism on our streets

"if the security services had spotted the clues, the 7/7 London bombings could have been prevented"

I would have thought that was as obvious a statement as "if he had not jumped from the top of a building, he would not have hit the ground hard"

[Rachel]

Jamal you wrote
'Although, Rachel North is explicit about the difference between Muslims and Terrorists, she constantly refers to Muslims and therefore the subliminal link between the two opposites gets across.'
That's untrue and unfair. Have you actually read anything I have ever written anywhere? You might want to take your axe and grind it at someone else - Melanie Phillips perhals.

I do not support the '7 July Truth campaign' website because it is a conspiracy theory website in my opinion.

And it is not only me requesting an inquiry, it is a sizeable group of survivors and relatives who were bereaved on 7/7. None of whom appear to be interested in the website you refer to either. Which should tell you a lot.