MOVING TO THE FRONT from Aug. 16: see Update.
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A former British Ambassador is skeptical:
I have been reading very carefully through all the Sunday newspapers to try and analyse the truth from all the scores of pages claiming to detail the so-called bomb plot. Unlike the great herd of so-called security experts doing the media analysis, I have the advantage of having had the very highest security clearances myself, having done a huge amount of professional intelligence analysis, and having been inside the spin machine.
So this, I believe, is the true story.
None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time.
In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.
What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.
Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes - which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information this way. Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might want, and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn't give is the truth.
The gentleman being "interrogated" had fled the UK after being wanted for questioning over the murder of his uncle some years ago. That might be felt to cast some doubt on his reliability. It might also be felt that factors other than political ones might be at play within these relationships. Much is also being made of large transfers of money outside the formal economy. Not in fact too unusual in the British Muslim community, but if this activity is criminal, there are many possibilities that have nothing to do with terrorism.
We then have the extraordinary question of Bush and Blair discussing the possible arrests over the weekend. Why? I think the answer to that is plain. Both in desperate domestic political trouble, they longed for "Another 9/11". The intelligence from Pakistan, however dodgy, gave them a new 9/11 they could sell to the media. The media has bought, wholesale, all the rubbish they have been shovelled.
Comments are open for anyone who has more information that bears on the doubts raised here. No anonymous postings. As I am rather busy the next couple of days, comments that may take awhile to be approved. Please be patient and post only once.
UPDATE: This story from today's New York Times suggests Mr. Murray's skepticism was not entirely off the mark (it may yet turn out not to be off the mark at all):
Warning that Britain faced a “deadly” and “enduring” threat from terrorism, British authorities announced today that 11 of 23 people held in connection with a suspected plot to blow up America-bound planes would be formally charged with offenses that included planning to bomb the airliners and conspiracy to commit murder....
The decision to press formal charges came after days of growing public skepticism about the extent of the plot that the authorities announced on Aug. 10. At the time, the police warned that the purported conspirators had planned to commit mass murder on what one officer called an “unimaginable scale.”
On that day, the police rounded up most of the suspects in early morning raids, saying they had thwarted a plot to use liquid explosives to bomb airliners flying to the United States from London. At that time, investigators said that up to 10 airplanes might have been attacked.
Ms Hemming [the British prosecutor] said eight of the 11 suspects charged today were accused of conspiracy to commit murder and an offense under new counterterrorism laws of “preparing acts of terrorism.” The charges accused them of planning “to smuggle the component parts of improvised explosive devices onto aircraft and assemble and detonate them on board.”
The three other suspects were charged with lesser offenses under counterterrorism legislation dating to 2000, Ms Hemming said.
The nature of the charges raised new speculation about the scope of the plot, possibly suggesting that it was more limited than indicated by the sweep of the first arrests. Ms Hemming said the authorities had not yet decided whether to seek the further detention of the 11 other suspects still held without charge.
