Michel Chossudovsky
On the 7th anniversary of the London Bombings (July 7, 2005), we bring the following collection of articles to the attention of our readers.
INTRODUCTION Coincidence? Unanswered Questions? Was there Advanced Knowledge of the 7/7 London Bomb Attacks? A fictional "scenario" of multiple bomb attacks on London's underground took place at exactly the same time as the bomb attack on July 7, 2005. Peter Power, Managing Director of Visor Consultants, a private firm on contract to the London Metropolitan Police, described in a BBC interview how he had organized and conducted the anti-terror drill, on behalf of an unnamed business client. The fictional scenario was based on simultaneous bombs going off at exactly the same time at the underground stations where the real attacks were occurring: "POWER: 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. HOST: To get this quite straight, you were running an exercise to see how you would cope with this and it happened while you were running the exercise? POWER: Precisely, and it was about half past nine this morning, we planned this for a company and for obvious reasons I don't want to reveal their name but they're listening and they'll know it. And we had a room full of crisis managers for the first time they'd met and so within five minutes we made a pretty rapid decision that this is the real one and so we went through the correct drills of activating crisis management procedures to jump from slow time to quick time thinking and so on." (BBC Radio Interview, 7 July 2005) In response to the flood of incoming email messages, Peter Power --who is a former senior Scotland Yard official specializing in counterterrorism-- responded in the form of the following "automatic reply": "Thank you for your message. Given the volume of emails about events on 7 July and a commonly expressed misguided belief that our exercise revealed prescient behaviour, or was somehow a conspiracy (noting that several websites interpreted our work that day in an inaccurate / naive / ignorant / hostile manner) it has been decided to issue a single email response as follows: It is confirmed that a short number of 'walk through' scenarios planed [sic] well in advance had commenced that morning for a private company in London (as part of a wider project that remains confidential) and that two scenarios related directly to terrorist bombs at the same time as the ones that actually detonated with such tragic results. One scenario in particular, was very similar to real time events. However, anyone with knowledge about such ongoing threats to our capital city will be aware that (a) the emergency services have already practiced several of their own exercises based on bombs in the underground system (also reported by the main news channels) and (b) a few months ago the BBC broadcast a similar documentary on the same theme, although with much worse consequences [??]. It is hardly surprising therefore, that we chose a feasible scenario - but the timing and script was nonetheless, a little disconcerting. In short, our exercise (which involved just a few people as crisis managers actually responding to a simulated series of activities involving, on paper, 1000 staff) quickly became the real thing and the players that morning responded very well indeed to the sudden reality of events. Beyond this no further comment will be made and based on the extraordinary number of messages from ill informed people, no replies will henceforth be given to anyone unable to demonstrate a bona fide reason for asking (e.g. accredited journalist / academic). [ signed ] Peter Power" |
Coincidence?
Was there Advanced knowledge of the Bomb Attacks?
Another Coincidence? Several important people were in London at the time of the bomb attacks including Benjamin Netanyahu and former Mayor of New York City Rudi Giuliani.
According to a report of the Associated Press correspondent in Jerusalem, the Israeli embassy in London had been advised by Scotland Yard of an impending terror event, suggesting that there was advanced knowledge of the planning of the 7/7 bomb attack by the British Home Office. (AP, July 7, 2005)
Was there Advanced knowledge of the Bomb Attacks?
Another Coincidence? Several important people were in London at the time of the bomb attacks including Benjamin Netanyahu and former Mayor of New York City Rudi Giuliani.
According to a report of the Associated Press correspondent in Jerusalem, the Israeli embassy in London had been advised by Scotland Yard of an impending terror event, suggesting that there was advanced knowledge of the planning of the 7/7 bomb attack by the British Home Office. (AP, July 7, 2005)
Benjamin Netanyahu, who at the time was Israel's Finance Minister, had been warned by his embassy not to attend an economic conference organized by the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) in collaboration with the Israeli embassy and Deutsche Bank.
Netanyahu was staying at the Aldridge Hotel in Mayfair. The conference venue was a few miles away at the Great Eastern Hotel close to the Liverpool subway station, where one of the bomb blasts occurred.
Rudolph Giuliani, who was mayor of New York City at the time of the 9/11 attacks, was staying at the Great Eastern hotel on the 7th of July, where TASE was hosting its economic conference, with Israel's Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as keynote speaker.
Giuliani was having a business breakfast meeting in his room at the Great Eastern Hotel, close to Liverpool Street station when the bombs went off.
Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Rudolph Giuliani knew each other. Giuliani had officially welcomed Netanyahu when he visited New York City as Prime Minister of Israel in 1996. There was no indication, however, from news reports that the two men met in London at the Great Eastern. On the day prior to the London attacks, July 6, Giuliani was in North Yorkshire at a meeting.
After completing his term as mayor of New York City, Rudi Giuliani established a security outfit: Giuliani Security and Safety. The latter is a subsidary of Giuliani Partners LLC. headed by former New York head of the FBI, Pasquale D'Amuro.
It is worth noting that Peter Power's Visor Consultants and Giuliani Security and Safety LLC specialize in similar "mock terror drills" and "emergency preparedness" procedures. Both Giuliani and Power were in London at the same time within a short distance of one of the bombing sites. While there is no evidence that Giuliani and Power met in London, the two companies have had prior business contacts in the area of emergency preparedness. Peter Power served on the Advisory Board to the Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness (CCEP), together with Richard Sheirer, Senior Vice President of Giuliani and Partners. who was previously Commissioner at the NYC Office of Emergency Management, and Director of New York City Homeland Security.
This introduction is based on an earlier article entitled 7/7 Mock Terror Drill: What Relationship to the Real Time Terror Attacks? August 8, 2007
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