Initial train operating company reports on the day announced the devastation on the Underground was the result of power surges and this continued to be reported until shortly after the explosion of a number 30 bus in Tavistock Square at 9.47am .
After the bus explosion a very different version of events began to unfold, involving everything from military grade explosives in bombs with timers and placed on, or under, train floors, to highly-volatile, home-made explosives allegedly carried by four young British men.
Sir Ian Blair labelled the investigation into July 7th, 'the biggest criminal inquiry in English history', yet, days after July 7th, British Prime Minister Tony Blair had already refused the British people a Public Inquiry.
On December 15th 2005 Charles Clarke once again refused the British people a public inquiry, offering instead a 'narrative' - nothing more than a story - about how so many were killed and injured on London transport in the events that led to 'the largest criminal inquiry in English history'.
To date, not one piece of evidence has been released that could be used to convict someone in a court of law for what happened on July 7th and the government still has no plans to organise an Independent Public Inquiry into events that day.
We believe this will not suffice to stand as judge, jury and executioner for the accused and the victims, nor is it sufficient explanation for the injured and their families, nor London's commuters, or the wider British public who also have a right to know what happened and how it happened.
In order to address this, we have one simple demand, that the government RELEASE THE EVIDENCE which conclusively proves, beyond reasonable doubt, the official Home Office narrative.
Please sign the J7 RELEASE THE EVIDENCE Petition
Visor Consultants' 'simultaneous bombs' rehearsal on 7 July 2005
On the afternoon and evening of 7th July 2005, information came to light about a private company running a terror rehearsal operation at the time that real explosions were reported to have occurred on the London transport network.
These revelations came not from an anonymous source but instead from the Managing Director of the private firm running the terror rehearsal operation. The private firm is Visor Consultants and the Managing Director in question is Peter Power. The client for whom the terror rehearsal was being organised is, thus far, unknown.
Peter Power's 7/7 Terror Interviews
On and after 7/7, Peter Power gave a number of interviews in which he referred to the terror exercise he was running on the morning of 7th July.
Power has since regularly appeared on TV and radio interviews as an independent security expert with no special connection to the events of 7 July 2005, even a year later when called on to discuss the incidents that occurred.
J7 is reproducing these interviews here so you can judge for yourself quite what should be made of such a bizarre and unlikely coincidence of events.
Peter Power on Radio 5 Live's Drivetime
The first of Mr Power's interviews was given on the afternoon of 7th July 2005, presumably after Mr Power had finished orchestrating his private terror rehearsal, when he appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live's Drivetime programme. Below is a transcript from the Radio 5 Live programme, complete with a link to a recording of the interview.:
POWER: ...at half-past nine this morning we were actually running an exercise for, er, over, 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 upright!
PETER ALLEN: 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, er, 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, '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.
Listen to Peter Power's Radio 5 Live Drivetime Interview
Note how Power refers to 'simultaneous bombs going off'. Note also that it wasn't until 9th July 2005, two days after the incidents, that it was revealed the explosions on the underground were 'almost simultaneous'. Power's fictional scenario, as explained by the man himself on the day, bears a closer resemblance to the eventual story of 7/7 than it does to the actual story that had been presented to the public by the police and authorities at the time of his interview.
Only ex-Mossad Chief, Efraim Halevi who wrote in the Jerusalem Post on 7th July 2005 of "the multiple, simultaneous explosions that took place today on the London transportation system" with "near pefect execution" was able to demonstrate the same level of 'insight' as Mr Power. Note: The original article is no longer available on the Jerusalem Post web site although copies can be found on the web.
Peter Power on ITV News: 7/7 Vision at 20:20
A short while after his appearance on BBC Radio, at 20:20 on 7/7, Peter Power gave a television interview to ITV news which revealed a little more about the nature of the operation as well as hinting at the sort of organisations for whom the operation might have been organised:
POWER: Today we were running an exercise for a company - bearing in mind I'm now in the private sector - and we sat everybody down, in the city - 1,000 people involved in the whole organisation - but the crisis team. And the most peculiar thing was, we based our scenario on the simultaneous attacks on an underground and mainline station. So we had to suddenly switch an exercise from 'fictional' to 'real'. And one of the first things is, get that bureau number, when you have a list of people missing, tell them. And it took a long time -
INTERVIEWER: Just to get this right, you were actually working today on an exercise that envisioned virtually this scenario?
POWER: Er, almost precisely. I was up to 2 oclock this morning, because it's our job, my own company. Visor Consultants, we specialise in helping people to get their crisis management response. How do you jump from 'slow time' thinking to 'quick time' doing? And we chose a scenario - with their assistance - which is based on a terrorist attack because they're very close to, er, a property occupied by Jewish businessmen, they're in the city, and there are more American banks in the city than there are in the whole of New York - a logical thing to do. And it, I've still got the hair....Click PLAY to watch Peter Power's ITV interview.
Peter Power on the Canadian Broadcasting Service
In the days after 7th July, rather than face questioning about his role, in conjunction with a 'company of over a thousand people' on the day that 56 were killed on London transport, Power flew to Toronto for the 15th World Conference on Disaster Management.
Power appeared on a discussion panel for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's news discussion programme CBS: Sunday Night, in which the host remarked upon the 'extraordinary' coincidence of Power's rehearsal scenario:
Evan Solomon: We've heard something quite extraordinary - could be a coincidence or not - that your firm, on the very day that the bombs went off in London, were running an exercise simulating three bombs going off, in the very same tube stations that they went off. How did this happen? Coincidence, or were you acting on information that you knew?
Peter Power: I don't think you could say that we had some special insight into the terrorist network, otherwise I would be under arrest myself. The truth of it is -
Solomon: But it is a coincidence.
Power: It's a coincidence, and it's a spooky coincidence. Our scenario was very similar - it wasn't totally identical, but it was based on bombs going off, to the time, the locations, all this sort of stuff. But it wasn't an accident, in the sense that London has a history of bombs, and the reason why our emergency services did so well, and prepared probably better than any other city in the world, sadly they have to be. So it wasn't exactly rocket science or totally out of the pale to come up with that scenario unusual though it be to stop the exercise and go into real time, and it worked very well, although there was a few seconds when the audience didn't realize whether it was real or not.
Mr Power went on to tell delegates at the disaster management conference that Canadians needed to open their eyes. He said, "You can't just lay back and say, 'Well it's cozy, we've been lucky. We're just nice guys. It won't happen to us. Sorry. The alarm bell is ringing now. When it happens, you don't want to say, 'well that was a wake-up call'."
'Mock Broadcasts' and the 7/7 terror rehearsal
On 8th July 2005, the day after the death and destruction in London, an interview with Peter Power appeared on page 5 of the Manchester Evening News in which Mr Power revealed that, not only had he coincidentally been running a terror rehearsal 'based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened' on 7th July, he had also organised a series of 'mock broadcasts' for the rehearsal operation that were apparently so realistic those participating in the exercise became confused about what was real and what was not:
Mr Power said: "I was an inspector at the time of the King's Cross fire and was involved in co-ordinating the operation.
"After leaving the Met, I set up my own crisis managment consultancy. Yesterday we were actually in the City working on an exercise involving mock broadcasts when it happened for real.
"When news bulletins started coming on, people began to say how realistic our exercise was - not realising there was an attack.We then became involved in a real crisis which we had to manage for the company."
Mr Power added: "During the exercise we were working on yesterday, we were looking at a situation where there had been bombs at key London transport locations - although we weren't specifically looking at a scenario where there had been a bomb on a bus.
"It's a standard exercise and briefing that we carry out."
Peter Power's Response to Inquiries
Perhaps unsurprisingly, news of a terror rehearsal based on simultaneous bombs going off at precisely the stations they did caused more than a little consternation among those members of the public and alternative media who knew of its existence. So great was the deluge of queries and questions about the nature of the exercise that Peter Power issued the following, single, generic response:
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).
Peter Power
Despite running a terror rehearsal on 7th July 2005, Peter Power has repeatedly been used as an independent expert on terrorism, sitting in judgement on such things as the execution of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell tube station as well the official reports which have been released about the events of 7th July 2005. In each instance, Power is presented as a someone who has no special connection with the events of 7/7, nor has he been questioned further about the exact nature and scope of the rehearsal operation he was running, not even about the "One scenario in particular" which "was very similar to real time events."
Can it possibly be that no accredited journalist or academic has dared approach Peter Power about his operation that day, or the 'wider project' of which it was a part? If the complete lack of information about the nature of the exercise is anything to go by, it would appear not, save for one timid article on the Channel 4 News web site which attempted to distract from the potential significance of the coincidence.
Peter Power Terror Rehearsal 'de-bunked' by Channel 4 News
While the curious coincidence the Visor Consultant's terror drill on the day of 7th July 2005 received very little in the way of follow-up media coverage, aside from the occasional passing mention in the days that followed, Channel 4 News published an article on 17th July 2005 in which, rather than set about finding out more about the nature of the operation in which Power was involved, journalist JJ King went to great lengths to explain how, some time after the event, presumably after the hairs on the back of Mr Power's neck were no longer standing upright, Power changed his line of, "running an exercise for a company of over a thousand people" that had so alarmed everyone to, "involving, on paper, 1000 staff".
According to the article's author, JJ King, this minor revision by Power of his original statement is sufficient reason to ignore Power's original statement. King further contends that because such rehearsal operations are common-place, there is nothing unusual about such a rehearsal running at the same time as a real attack. In instances where the rehearsal and real-time events didn't match so closely, this might be true. Significantly, perhaps, one other notable occasion where coordinated attack rehearsals were running at the same time as a real attack happens to be the day of 11th September 2001 when a number of wargame exercises involving simulated attacks on the World Trade Center featured.
Interestingly, King also notes the observations of the one of the CBS show's associate producers:
Colman Jones, an Associate Producer on CBS:Sunday Night, claimed in his blog that, while escorting participants from the building, he enquired of Power 'why there had not been more media coverage of this.' 'They were trying to keep it quiet,' Power purportedly responded, with what Jones called 'a knowing smile.'
JJ King concludes his article with:
'When you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras,' goes the often-quoted popularisation of Occam's Razor.
In the absence of journalistic nous, bloggers would do well to stick by it.
In the face of investigative journalists that have repeatedly failed to report, or even investigate, the huge number of errors and inconsistencies in the Official Report and the many stories willfully spun by the media about the events of July 7th, J7 contends that bloggers and the general public would do well to stick by something other than the 'journalistic nous' which has consistently and repeatedly failed them to date.
Peter Power's mainstream media terror operations
16th May, 2004:
"The Home Secretary has said the attacks bear the hallmark of Al-Qaeda..."
Source: Panorama, London Under Attack
Simulating a fictional terrorist attack on London7th July, 2005:
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the coordinated blasts in trains and a bus bore "the hallmarks of an al Qaeda-related attack"
Source: Yahoo News
As Peter Power claimed in the Manchester Evening News of his 7th July terror rehearsal, "It's a standard exercise and briefing that we carry out." Indeed, Peter Power had previous experience of rehearsing bombs on the Underground for he was one of a small but select panel of advisors that helped create the BBC's Panorama programme London Under Attack in May 2004, over a year before the events of July 2005.
The panel also included the former British Army and British Intelligence operative, Crispin Black, one of the first people to publish a book about the London bombings, in which he wrote:
We need an official inquiry - now. Not a whitewash inquiry like Lord Hutton's. Or a punch-pulling inquiry like Lord Butler's. But an inquiry run by plain Mr or Mrs somebody."
As a brief aside, Crispin Black's statement - in part - provided some of the impetus behind the growing group of plain Mr or Mrs Somebodies that have worked together to establish the July 7th Truth Campaign, the J7 web site, the J7 People's Independent Inquiry Forum and the J7 Petition calling on the government to RELEASE THE EVIDENCE that conclusively proves or disproves the official Home Office narrative.
The May 2004 edition of Panorama focused on London falling victim to a terrorist attack and, coincidentally, featured three explosions on underground trains and one explosion on a land-based transportation device, a rehearsal scenario not entirely dissimilar to Mr Power's rehearsal operation on 7th July 2005 and the apparent reality of events that day.
The BBC described Panorama's London Under Attack on their web site:
This film is a mock exercise of what might happen in London if there was a terror attack now.
In a unique fusion of drama, detailed research and expert discussion Panorama puts Britain's emergency plans to the test.
Set in the future - but only just - the city of London is thrown into chaos by a series of terrorist attacks.
The fictional day of terror unfolds through the immediacy of rolling news bringing the catastrophic attack into our living rooms.
For those that missed the documentary, the BBC has kindly provided a copy of "'How the fictional attack unfolded", a page dedicated to revealing how news of the fictional attack was presented to the world via a series of 'mock broadcasts'. The key events unfolded like this:
8.20am Tuesday 25 May: We're receiving news of an explosion in the London underground near Hyde Park. This has not yet been confirmed by the police
8.27am: There has been a 2nd explosion on the underground, this time close to Oxford Circus. Both explosions appear to have occurred on the trains as they were moving.
8.40am: Reports are coming in that a third explosion has now occurred on an underground train approaching Vauxhall station.
9am: News 24 headlines: In the past hour there have been three major explosions on the London Underground. The first at 8.10am on the Piccadilly Line between Knightsbridge and Hyde Park Corner. The second at 8.16 on the Central Line between Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Circus and the third at 8.27 as a train was arriving at Vauxhall station in Stockwell on the Victoria line. Emergency services have been called to all three scenes. There are no reports on number of casualties and the police say its too early to identify a possible cause. London underground is now closed and police are now urging people not to travel.
10.10: We're just getting reports that there has been a further explosion in central London in the region around Liverpool street station, we will of course bring you more news on that as soon as we can. Meanwhile traffic problems continue in central London as the full effects of the emergency police cordons are being felt.
10.41: We can now confirm that a tanker carrying chlorine has exploded at the junction of Shoreditch high Street and commercial street. Chlorine is extremely toxic in this form and police are issuing express warnings for people to stay indoors, close windows and remain there until the all clear is given.
10.44: Police are still urging people to stay indoors until the extent of the chlorine release is known. They are repeating again, chlorine is extremely toxic.
Peter Power and Panorama's 'mock broadcasts' detailed the unfolding of the fictional terror attack, along with graphics showing the fictional blast locations and simulating how news of the attack might be presented, had such an attack actually occurred.
The unfolding of the Panorama sequence of events bears an uncanny resemblance to how the initial stories of 7 July 2005 were rolled out; three explosions underground, with timings staggered over the space of half an hour, before a fourth explosion occurred some time later on an above ground transportation device. For Panorama, the land-based transportation device was a chlorine tanker. On 7 July 2005, it was a number 30 bus.
A copy of the Panorama programme does not appear to be available from the BBC web site, however you can read a transcript of BBC Panorama's London Under Attack programme here . A mirror copy of the transcript can be found here.
What is interesting to note are the findings of the Panorama documentary of May 2004, as summarised below:
The programme reveals that police, ambulance and fire services communications systems are incompatible with each other in London and across the UK and that in the deep underground, Metropolitan Police radios do not work.
Radios incompatible
The communications system used by Civil Contingency Reaction Force (CCRF) - a specialist groups of reservists whose role is to help out in the event of disaster scenarios - is also incompatible with any of the emergency services.
This means that in the event of a disaster - none of the emergency services would be able to talk to each other on their own radios
These findings were passed to the Home Office by Panorama. At the time of the programme, the Home Office had refused to cooperate with the exercise, branding it as 'alarmist and irresponsible'. However, the findings should have come as no surprise to anyone given that the inquiry into the King's Cross fire of 18th November 1987 -- another event with which Peter Power was involved -- came to the exactly the same conclusions about communications as Panorama did over a decade later. These happen to be the same findings that the Greater London Authority's 7 July Review Committee arrived at 18 years after the King's Cross Fire - a point which the 7 July Review Committee deemed worthy of note in its own final report, along with the unacceptability that these communication problems still had not been resolved:
2.24 The official inquiry into the King’s Cross fire, published in 1988, included a chapter on communications. The report highlighted the lack of communications between the station surface and underground, and the inability of officers from the British Transport Police and London Fire Brigade to communicate underground unless they were within line of sight of each other. The report made recommendations aimed at putting in place effective communications within and between the emergency services underground. These were categorised by Desmond Fennell OBE QC, who conducted the inquiry, as among the most important recommendations made in the report.
....
11.5 It is unacceptable that the emergency services, with the exception of the British Transport Police, are still not able to communicate by radio when they are underground, 18 years after the official inquiry into the King’s Cross fire recommended action to address this problem. The Committee has been told that this problem will be resolved by the end of 2007.
In fact, Peter Power had something to say about the 7 July Review Committee reports released two years after his involvement in Panorama's London Under Attack, and a year after his terror rehearsal operation on 7th July 2005. In the clip from BBC News below, Mr Power, aside from plugging his Survive organisation, reveals that he was also running a 'command centre' for another organisation on 7th July 2005 and, yet again, refers to the importance of getting a casualty bureau number out when a real disaster occurs, something that did not happen on 7th July 2005 for over six hours after the first incidents were reported.
Note: Throughout the news and media coverage of the day, no casualty bureau number was ever announced to the public until 3:24pm, by DAC Brian Paddick during a Metropolitan Police Press Conference. This is over six hours after the first incident of the day was reported and several hours after various authorities and emergency services had declared major incidents at multiple locations. Why was a casualty bureau number not set-up and broadcast immediately the first major incident was declared?
Peter Power on Peter Power
From the Visor Consultants web site (picture added by J7):
Who is Peter Power?
Peter Power, BA FIRM FCMI FEPS FBCI
Managing Director, Visor ConsultantsPeter is the author of the present UK Govt. (DTI) advice booklet ‘Preventing Chaos in a Crisis' and the British Bankers Association/KPMG guide on Crisis Management. Peter is the Founding Chairman of the Survive Crisis Management Special Interest Group, and is also engaged as a Special Advisor to a number of key organisations including the Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness, Disaster Management Forum (UK) and the Business Continuity (BC) Institute London Forum. He is in addition, a Special Advisor to the editorial board of Continuity Professional Magazine in the USA and is listed in the UK Register of Expert Witnesses.
Peter is also a Fellow of the Emergency Planning Society, Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute, Fellow of the Business Continuity Institute, Fellow of the Institute of Risk Management and a member of the Guild of Freemen of the City of London.
He is the Founding Chairman of the Survive Crisis Mgt. Special Interest Group, and is also engaged as a Special Advisor to a number of key organisations including the Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness, Disaster Management Forum (UK) and the Business Continuity (BC) Institute London Forum.
Peter has a senior Scotland Yard background which includes setting up the multi agency operational management structure at the Kings Cross fire, secondment to the Anti Terrorist Branch, deputy forward control coordinator at the Libyan People Bureau siege and leading the team behind the existing police street philosophy for dealing with terrorist bombs. He is also the primary author / promulgator of the present UK Police command methodology Gold, Silver & Bronze and a founder member of the UK judging panel for BC Awards.
Peter's recent appearances on TV and Radio include interviews on numerous live News broadcasts as well as documentaries, and taking part in the recent BBC TV Panorama current affairs programme examining the impact of terrorism on London. He is specifically quoted on the BBC web site in relation to his role at the scene of several previous major incidents in the UK.
An excerpt from the web site of Survive, Power's own Crisis Management Special Interest Group and apparently, "the world's leading forum for expertise and information exchange among Business Continuity (BC) management practitioners", lists a few more of Mr Power's accolades:
Peter Power is Managing Director of Visor Consultants Limited based in Mayfair, London. He is well known as an authoritative and entertaining presenter and writer with considerable front line crisis experience. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Risk Management, Fellow of the Emergency Planning Society, Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute, Fellow of the Business Continuity Institute, and a member of the Guild of Freemen of the City of London. He is the author of the present HM Government (DTI) booklet ‘Preventing Chaos in a Crisis’ and the new British Bankers Association guide on Crisis Management. He is the Founding Chairman of the Survive Crisis Management Special Interest Group and is also engaged as a Special Advisor to the Canadian Centre for Emergency Preparedness, Disaster Management Forum (UK) and the BCI London Forum. He is also a founder member of the UK judging panel for the Business Continuity Awards.
Source: Survive
An objective look at Peter Power's career
Peter Power has a long and interesting history of involvement with terrorist incidents and disasters on the underground. His distinguished career includes being deputy forward controller at the scene of the shooting of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, an incident that occurred during the Libyan People's Bureau siege, as well taking a senior role in the Oxford Circus underground fire and the King's Cross station fire operations.
The Killing of WPC Yvonne Fletcher
Woman Police Constable (WPC) Yvonne Fletcher (1959–17 April 1984) was a British policewoman who was shot and killed in London's St James's Square during a protest outside the Libyan embassy. The shooting resulted in a siege at the embassy which lasted for eleven days, as well as the breakdown of diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Libya. She was the first policewoman to be murdered while on duty in Britain.
Eleven anti-Gadafy demonstrators were injured in the volley of gun fire. WPC Yvonne Fletcher was also shot and, although rushed to Westminster Hospital, died soon after arrival.
Peter Power was the deputy forward controller at the Libyan People's Bureau siege at which WPC Yvonne Fletcher was shot. Fletcher's murder would later become a major factor in the then prime minister Thatcher's decision to allow U.S. President Ronald Reagan to launch the USAF bombing raid on Libya in 1986 from American bases in Britain.
In April 1996, 12 years after the killing, Britain’s Channel Four flagship documentary programme Dispatches - in a massively researched broadcast, 'Murder at St James's', that cited credible and experienced sources - revealed that Fletcher had been murdered by elements of British and American intelligence. Disgracefully, these astonishing revelations went unreported by the media in much the same way as crucial revelations about the events of 7th July 2005, such as Peter Power's simultaneous terror operation and the many factual inaccuracies, inconsistencies and curious anomalies in the official story of July 7th have also gone virtually, if not totally, unreported and unchallenged.
Issues raised by the Dispatches programme about the killing of WPC Fletcher were later raised in Parliament by Tam Dalyell on 8 May 1996. Mr Dalyell qualified before Parliament that the programme had been exceptionally well researched and that it had featured the statements from people whose calibre and relevant experience was beyond question or compare. Contributors to Dispatches included a senior ballistics officer of the British Army, Lieutenant Colonel George Styles, and Dr Bernard Knight, a senior and distinguished Home Office pathologist.
MP Tam Dalyell raised a total of eight separate issues in relation to the murder of WPC Fletcher, including that Yvonne Fletcher appeared to have have been shot from a different direction than that alleged; that huge discrepancies existed between the reports of pathologist Dr Ian West whose post mortem report differed significantly from his analysis presented at the inquest; and that WPC Fletcher's injuries could not have been caused by the alleged combination of gun and firing position.
When the makers of 'Murder at St James's', Fulcrum Productions, attempted to interview the pathologist, Dr Ian West, about the inconsistencies in his reports, he cancelled two appointments and then refused completely to meet.
In response to Mr Dalyell's inquiries in Parliament, the Minister of State for the Home Office, David Maclean, dismissed the Dispatches programme simply as "preposterous trash".
The ongoing controversy surrounding Fletcher's death resulted in the current prime minister, Tony Blair, being questioned by former MP Tam Dalyell in parliament on 24 June 1997. Mr Dalyell received a similarly unenthusiastic response from the State as he had on previous occasions. In 1998, 14 years after the killing, the murder of WPC Fletcher was still being cited as the sole reason for maintaining trade sanctions against Libya by Jack Straw on behalf of the Labour government.
Following the shooting of WPC Fletcher, the then Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, immediately ordered an investigation. The results of that investigation have never been divulged to the British public and have remained one of many State secrets kept from the public.
Perhaps the deputy forward controller at the Libyan People's Bureau siege, Peter Power, might able to shed some light on exactly what happened in the case of the killing of WPC Yvonne Fletcher, as well as during his terror rehearsal operation in London on 7th July 2005.
The Oxford Circus Underground Fire
During the Oxford Circus fire incident of 1984, a crisis situation that earnt Mr Power the title of 'Pied Piper of the Underground', Power commandeered an underground train on which he happened to be travelling, lied to passengers over the train's tannoy system about the severity of the situation that faced them before giving the train's driver "a certain bit of advice to his face" after which the driver, "was knocked out". See the BBC On This Day reports "1984: Oxford Circus fire traps hundreds" and, "1984: 'Pied Piper' of the Underground" for more information on these incidents.
The King's Cross Station Fire
On 18 November 1987, a flash fire engulfed an old wooden escalator at the King's Cross underground station. Thirty one people perished in the disaster including a firefighter - Colin Townsley, station officer from the Soho Fire Station in central London. Two other firefighters were trapped on the station platform but survived.
You can see a short ITN News at Ten report of the King's Cross fire here.
From the BBC 'On this day' report:
Inspector Peter Power was sent to the scene of the King's Cross fire to co-ordinate the efforts of the emergency services.
He ran the Metropolitan Police's forward command post for much of the evening and most of the night on 18 November 1987.
Three years earlier he himself had been trapped underground in a serious fire at Oxford Circus Tube station in London.
We recommend reading the full BBC account of Peter Power's activities at the Metropolitan Police's forward command post which includes the strange tale of drunken police officers attending the scene who later "would be taken home by chauffeur-driven car after they had worked out their war stories and had a few drinks", and this interesting snippet about Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner since February 2005:
The present deputy-commissioner of the Met Police, Ian Blair, was already on scene as a detective inspector.
We knew each other very well and he turned to me and said, "Peter, I think we've had a bomb explosion here."
I asked him why and he said, "At least one of the casualties has metal deep inside him... but we're not going to go public on it."
The MI6 Builiding Rocket Attack
At around 9:45pm on 20th September 2000, an explosion was reported in central London at the headquarters of Britain's secret service, MI6. Initially it was unknown whether the explosion had occurred inside or outside the building and firefighters say they were called to attend the scene at Vauxhall Cross at 9.52pm.
A rocket launcher was later found and no group ever claimed responsibility, although suspicions pointed the finger at the Real IRA. After the MI6 rocket attack, Mr Power was again quoted by the BBC.
He described the MI6 building as one of the most high profile in central London in a statement that seemed to positively encourage such activities. Power told the BBC:
“If you wanted to make a name for yourself, get yourself back onto the front pages, why not go for something that’s high profile and minimal risk.”
To date, despite the device used to launch the attack being found in Spring Gardens, nobody has ever been charged for this attack, although it was intimated at the time that Irish Republican organisations might be responsible. This begs many questions about who might be be capable of perpetrating a rocket attack on a building as high-profile as the MI6 building and be allowed to get away with it.
Visor Consultants mentioned in Parliament
Security Exercises (London Underground)
Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what security exercises were undertaken by Visor consultants in or around London Underground stations in the week preceding 7 July. [16048]
Ms Buck: None.
Short and sweet if nothing else. Never since mentioned in Parliament.
Peter Power's international connections
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 itself both a security consultancy and Investment Bank and Mr. Giuliani himself, by another strange coincidence, also 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.
Mr Giuliani was mayor of New York at the time of the 9/11 and his emergency bunker was destroyed at 5:30pm that day when World Trade Centre building 7 mysteriously collapsed.
How much more do we know now?
In short, very little. To date, the client for whom Visor Consultants was running this anti-terror operation has never been revealed, despite the fact that there are potentially 1,000 people who were taking part in this exercise. Neither has Peter Power, nor any other representatives of Visor Consultants, been publicly quizzed about the exact nature and extent of their operation that morning, despite the extremely bizarre coincidence of them running a rehearsal "based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened."
The only additional information that has appeared in the public domain, apparently from Peter Power himself, appeared in the form of a comment left on the Newsnight Editors' blog, the second written statement attributed to him since the events of 7 July 2005:
202. At 09.25 AM
on 17 Sep 2006, Peter Power wrote:
My name repeatedly comes up whenever armchair / conspiratorial thinkers consider the terrorist exercise my company ran in London at exactly the same time as 7/7. This is only the second time I have formally reacted to these numerous statements. I’ve also appeared many times on BBC News / Newsnight to explain post 9/11 & 7/7 concepts such as ‘new normal’ etc. I think anyone familiar with likely terrorist targets will release [sic] our exercise scenario was coincidence rather than conspiracy, but it does start to raise some interesting points on a wider scale.
Several features now exist to create a much more generic and all-hazards approach to numerous risks and threats that are uniquely starting to appear on the global / corporate radar screen irrespective of country, culture, geography or sector. Some of these are already occurring such as a new form of terrorism that has no ‘political’ objective, the effect of high volume and unrestricted information on the internet, spread of disease / mass travel (230m people passed through UK airports last year / all major air hubs are less than 72 hours apart), ineffective world leaders & UN, the consequences of accelerating global warming, the positioning of key essential / physiological supplies (Critical National Infrastructure – CNI - UK) in the private sector (e.g. electricity, water etc.) and an associated failure to understand how vital the private sector is not only in terms of employment, economy and wealth generation, but to maintain almost the entire CNI in most if it not all countries.
In several cases these threats and risks combine to create a series of problems that we are presently unable to deal with as a result of silo based attitudes, incompetence, proprietorial behaviour or just complacency.
There is I suggest, a need to start building a new approach based on conceptualising and hopefully influencing others since we are presently lacking a truly forward thinking and pan global collective body of influential advisors, practitioners and academics that transcends the otherwise valuable but discrete institutions in many countries and their individual agendas. It might just inform many others as to what terrorism is all about and get them to think twice before alleging my own company was some how implicated in 7/7. My aim is to help stimulate, collaborate and disseminate effective and non partisan advice without the handicap of parochial restrictions, silo constraints or inhibited vision.
Of course, as Mr Power also says:
"Terror doesn't rely on the bang,
it relies on the fear of the bang."
So, if you have any information about any aspects of the anti-terror rehearsal operation run by Peter Power and Visor Consultants on the morning of July 7th, please get in touch.
In the meantime, please sign the J7 RELEASE THE EVIDENCE Petition!
Please sign the J7 RELEASE THE EVIDENCE Petition
July 7th Alternative Hypotheses
What else might have happened?
Below is a short sample of potential alternative hypotheses to the official conspiracy theory about how 7/7 came to be. It is by no means a complete or comprehensive list, merely possible alternatives for consideration:
1. Al-Qa'ida mastermind recruited British Muslims as suicide bombers.
3. Homegrown and autonomous action by four British Muslims with no mastermind.
1. Al-Qa'ida mastermind recruited British Muslims as suicide bombers
This is the mainstream story, even though the details are inconsistent and change without explanation. For example, the idea that there was a 'mastermind' was proposed even on the day of the attacks, some names were even suggested for who it might be, such as Mustafa Nasar, the suspected 'mastermind behind the Madrid bombings. Haroon Rashid Aswat was another name mentioned; the media reported he had been arrested in Pakistan, even describing what he was wearing at the time, but this was denied by the police. Aswat was eventually arrested in Zambia and brought back to Britain.
When John Loftus, a terrorism expert, revealed on Fox News that Aswat had in fact been an MI6 asset, all the links between him and the London bombings were played down, even though he was widely reported to have had recent telephone contact with the men.
Christophe Chaboud, head of the French Anti-Terrorism Co-ordination Unit, told Le Monde newspaper that the explosives used in the bombings were of "military origin". After British police raided several properties in Leeds, they claimed to have found traces of TATP and announced that the bombs on July 7th were comprised of peroxide-based explosives made by hand. There were confusing discrepancies over whether the bombs had been detonated manually or by timers, where the bombs had actually been placed and many inaccurate reports were made about the lives of the four men which even though were shown later not to be true, were never retracted in the national press. Matthew Parris of The Times wrote an article criticizing how the story has been continually changed and exaggerated.
The idea that a home-grown independent terror-cell couldn't have carried out this action is linked to three supposed functions of a terrorist network:
- Recruitment/motivation management;
- Technical help, including with making the bombs and possible provision of high- grade explosives;
- Target selection.
However, on August 13th, The Independent's cover story - 'London Bombings: The Truth Emerges, wrote that there was no evidence of a terror mastermind'.
Much was made about how two of the men (after initial incorrect reports stating 'three men') had recently visited Pakistan. It is not unusual for British Pakistanis to visit their ancestral land. Initial reports that Tanweer spent lots of time at a particularly questionable centre near Lahore now aqppear to be untrue; he spent most of his visit with relatives near Faislabad. As for supposed corroboration of 'terrorist links' to the four designated 'suicide bombers' being supplied by those held in Pakistan or Egypt, where torture is routine, these reports are especially dubious perhaps to the point of worthlessness.
Soon after the event there were claims of responsibility; one by a group named The Secret Organisation Group of al-Qaeda of Jihad Organisation in Europe. This group was not considered credible, yet reports regarding the claim carried on for several days before disappearing. Coverage of this story was largely promulgated by the British Broadcasting Corporation.
The strongest suggestion of a link with al-Qa'ida was the video released of Mohammad Sidique Khan. However, people close to Khan are certain it isn't him, as he looked much different in the video. It is possible the Khan made a video as part of an infiltration operation into Muslim extremist groups by the secret services which often employ Muslim men for this purpose (See hypothesis 8). The video has never been officially authenticated and past videos shown by al-Jazeera have often been generally regarded as fake.
There were also many reports in the media about the trip two of the men made within a larger group to a whitewater rafting centre in Wales, there were reports of 'bonding weekends' and 'toughing-up missions'. The Times wrote a report suggesting that a mysterious 'mastermind' accompanied the men on their trip. Yet the manager of the centre in Bala stated that they do not run weekend courses and the men in the group acted no differently and engaged in no different activities than any other visitor to the centre.
2. Al-Qa'ida mastermind recruited British Muslims for indiscriminate attacks, but duped them in so far as the latter did not know they were going to die in the explosions.
The Mirror raised this possibility on July 16th.
According to the only CCTV picture released so far [if genuine - see below at hypothesis 8] the four men seemed very relaxed. They are also reported to have bought return tickets and pay and display tickets for their cars at Luton station car park. Even though it could be argued that the men may have done this to allay suspicion, other behaviour doesn't seem to fit the profile of suicide bombers. Shehzad Tanweer had just spend a large amount of money to repair his car. He was captured on CCTV arguing with a cashier over change at a petrol station shortly before the attacks. He had also played a leisurely game of cricket the night before.
3. Homegrown and autonomous action by four British Muslims with no mastermind.
The contradictions surrounding the nature of the explosives cast doubt on this theory. Christophe Chaboud, France's new antiterrorism coordinator, stated that he knew 'the nature of the explosive' in the London bombings: It ''appears to be military, which is very worrisome,'' he said.
Other experts, both British and European, also indicated that the explosive used was of 'military quality' or at least 'technically advanced' :' British intelligence officials have asked their counterparts elsewhere in Europe to scour military stockpiles and commercial sites for missing explosives, three senior European-based intelligence officials said.
However, later reports of a bath containing TATP in a flat in Burley, Leeds, suggested that the bombs were homemade. The men had been reported to have been seen buying the rucksacks they allegedly used to carry the bombs and the actual devices used weighed, surprisingly, less than ten pounds.
In January 2006, The Evening Standard reported that the bombings had cost just £500 to carry out and had been principally funded by Sidique Khan. The article also stated that this cost was 'significantly lower' than the cost of financing other similar terrorist attacks across the world, so this seems rather strange.
4. Any of the above plots could have been monitored by one or more secret 'service' (MI5, MI6, CIA, Mossad) but they let it happen on purpose in order to exploit the subsequent situation.
There were reports of Israeli prior knowledge of the attacks. Israel's finance minister, Binyamin Netanyahu was warned to stay in his hotel room shortly before the blasts went off, instead of making his way to an hotel adjacent to Liverpool Street station, close to one of the explosions. The Israeli Embassy claimed to have received a warning from Scotland Yard. and stressed that the advanced Scotland Yard warning did not indicate that Israel was the target. Scotland Yard later denied they had provided the Israeli Embassy with any such warning.
An additional possibility is that the non-governmental group who carried it out was a British fascist group with intelligence connections. It certainly seems quite possible that, as with 9/11, people made a lot of money out of advance knowledge of the coming attacks - in this case by 'shorting' the pound 10 cents against the dollar in the run-up to the 7th July. See 'Who shorted the pound' and 'How did Greenspan know?'
5. The men thought they were going to strike a blow for Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc and go to Heaven as 'martyrs' because they had been groomed and encouraged and equipped by an al-Qa'ida mastermind who was actually working for one of the State agencies or a rogue network straddling one or more of them with their own agenda.
The reports about Haroon Rashid Aswat working for MI6, give some credence to this theory See here and here.
There is a long history of state use of 'agent provocateurs'. Many 'al-Qa'ida' clerics or other extremist activists turn out on closer inspection to have very close links to the secret services; indeed the name 'Londonistan' was coined by those who believe that MI6 was tolerating London being used as a base for certain attacks in other countries in order to secure immunity from attacks in the UK.
http://wagnews.blogspot.com/2005/07/al-qaeda-qatada-madrid-london-and.html
http://www.globalresearch.ca/
http://wagnews.blogspot.com/2005/07/cut-outs-moles-patsies-and.html
There is also evidence of extremist clerics and websites which turn out to be fronts for UK and European fascists.
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/Jul%20archives.htm (scroll to July 24th entry.)
6. The four men thought they were going to be delivering drugs or money to various locations round London, but were deceived, set up and murdered along with the others on their tubes and bus when their back packs exploded.
Many of the details people take to support the first three stories could also support this explanation. For example, the trips to Pakistan could have facilitated the setting up of drug deals. How were the Pakistan trips financed? Jamal Lindsay's reported purchase of large amounts of perfume, the purchases of boxes and rucksacks all fit the drugs hypothesis, either to hide the smell or as a means of laundering money. Drugs are a common way for patsies to be drawn into position. Those who have analysed 9/11 believe that Mohammed Atta and co probably thought they were being trained to fly 'puddlejumpers' for the CIA in Afghanistan (see 'Terrorland' by Daniel Hopsicker), and also here: http://www.williambowles.info/911/911_dirty_secret.html
William Bowles was one of those who set out the drugs version in Dead Men Tell No Tales: Were the London Bombings A Set Up?
Opinions differ as to whether such a rucksack delivery system for drugs is plausible (or would have seemed plausible to the four 'mules') - some say that you would drive round London with the stuff in the boot of your hired car. However, they may have set out to do just that; the Luton story and picture could be quite false - (see hypothesis 8.) They may also have thought they were delivering money - apparently not so unusual in some Asian networks. One analysis tending to support the 'duped' notion (version 6 or 7) is the following
http://www.brushtail.com.au/july_05_on/london_bombers_duped.html
7. As above but the men thought they were carrying dummy 'bombs' because they were participating in an exercise testing London transport's defences against backpack bombers.
Crisis management consultants, Visor, were running a terrorist exercise on the morning of July 7th. Visor's MD, Peter Power, who is a retired anti-terrorist police officer who retains close links to Scotland Yard, gave an interview on BBC Radio 5, and 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."
Power stated that the company employing them that morning was involved in London transport but would not give their name.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2005/090705bombingexercises.htm
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2005/130705newdevelopments.htm
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2005/120705importantquestions.htm
Maybe four 'backpack bombers' could have been designed into the drill? Visor Consultants had been to the fore in the 'London Resilience' consortium of transport and emergency service organisations, which planned 'Atlantic Blue' exercises in 2003, an exercise which involved dummy bombs on tubes. Further exercises had followed and a 2003 report tells us that a major British/American one was planned for 2005.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/3320809.stm
8. The four men were chosen or lured in to be patsies in a classic 'false flag operation' or frame-up by a network involved with one or more of the intelligence services.
This theory is the one argued by Fintan Dunne of BreakForNews.
http://wagnews.blogspot.com/2005/07/how-black-ops-staged-london-bombings.html
Witnesses and survivors spoke of the damage to the floor of the trains suggesting that the bombs had been underneath. Bruce Lait, a passenger on the Aldgate train said:
"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," [Survivor Bruce Lait as reported in Cambridge News]
Guardian journalist Mark Honigsbaum also recorded several witnesses speaking of explosions under the floor of the train, the floors of the trains being torn up and floor tiles flying upwards.
Those who have studied 9-11 are particularly suspicious of the role of former New York Mayor Guiliani both on that day and subsequently. Visor Consultancy managing director Peter Power has co-addressed conferences along with a business associate of Guiliani's principal business partner, and Guiliani was in town on the morning of 7/7, based near Liverpool Street station in the same Great Eastern Hotel as Netanyahu. The head of London Transport, American Bob Kiley, is a member of the influential Council on Foreign Relations and one-time CIA high-flyer, and his head of London Underground is also a wealthy American executive.
Since September 2004 an Israeli company had become heavily involved with the tube network, having been contracted by Metronet to supply the video technology for platform surveillance and 'certain remote portions of the track'.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=69208
http://www.rense.com/general67/sisr.htm
This becomes of possible relevance if it is borne in mind how many Israeli companies, like US or British, co-operate with or act as vehicles for intelligence agencies. If the bombs weren't in backpacks inside the carriages, but underneath them, then the powersurge, which was initially reported by London Underground and Metronet and denied by the National Grid, could have been used to detonate the bombs, and or knock out video-systems?
No CCTV footage was ever shown of any of the men at Kings Cross Thameslink, Mainline or Underground stations, or getting on to the relevant tubes/bus. It is unlikely that none of the cameras were working. This image gallery shows how many cameras there are which should have captured the men as they made their way from the Thameslink to the mainline station:
The still photo we were shown from Luton Station is of extremely poor quality, especially when compared with the plethora of sharp, moving images from the supposed 'dummy run' of June 28th and of the alleged perpetrators of the failed bombs of July 21st.
Hasib Hussain was caught on camera leaving Boots at 9am, yet according to witness reports, King's Cross was already being evacuated at that time. This image was not released until the day after the bombing in Bali, yet the police must surely have been in possession of it from the same time they had all the other imagery that they claim to have. Hussain was not caught on the CCTV of the bus he allegedly bombed, since it was apparently not working that day. A Stagecoach employee, after pointing out that the No.30 was the only bus to be diverted from its usual route that day, said:
"CCTV gets maintained at least 2 or 3 times a week and can digitally store up to 2 whole weeks worth of footage. This is done by a private contractor....So when I heard that the CCTV wasn't working on a vehicle that's no more than 2 years old since last June.....I'm sorry that's rubbish, I work for the company I know different."
Note: Independent research by J7 researchers has since discovered that the story of the Stagecoach employee is false and provably so, leading some to conclude that the original story about only one bus being diverted from its usual route may have been a piece of deliberate misinformation. At least two other buses were in Tavistock Square on the morning of 7th July 2005 that do not enter Tavistock Square as part of their usual route. These buses were a number 205 directly ahead of the number 30 and a 390 ahead of the 205.
The only witness who claimed to have a clear description of the 'bus bomber' clearly did not see Hasib Hussain that day.
http://www.faulkingtruth.com/Articles/CommentaryToo/1037.html
The identification of three of the four designated terrorists took place at a remarkably early stage - July 12th - with only one or two of the other 56 dead people identified. Some have asked how the police knew who to connect up with whom, as only one of the bombers is said to have left ID in two separate locations. The identification was initially made through credit card details as opposed to mortal remains.
http://www.team8plus.org/forum_viewtopic.php?9.1439
Fintan Dunne asks if the men even got as far as Luton station that morning, suggesting that the only evidence placing them there is possibly faked.
http://wagnews.blogspot.com/2005/07/london-bombers-did-they-board-at-luton.html
http://wagnews.blogspot.com/2005/07/evidence-luton-cctv-image-is-fake.html
The men were reported by various media to have caught either the 07:40 or the 07:48 train from Luton to Kings Cross Thameslink station. Evidence supplied by Chris Hudson, Communications Manager of Thameslink Rail, showed that they could not have caught the 07:40 as it had been cancelled.
The trains had been heavily disrupted that morning and the ones which ran did not run on time. The BBc programme 'Horizon', reported that the men took the 07:48. However, this train was delayed and would have arrived at Kings Cross too late for the men to have been caught on CCTV at 8:26, which is the time the police say the cameras caught them at the main concourse.
It has been suggested the men may have caught an earlier train, which left at 07:25, especially if they had already purchased tickets and moved quickly through Luton station. However, the train would not have reached the Thameslink station at Kings Cross until 8:23am. It is approximately an eight minute walk between the Thameslink and Mainline stations, so again, it is virtually impossible that they could have been caught on CCTV at 8:26. If it cannot be proven that the men took a train from Luton in order to have got to Kings Cross by the time the police say they were there, then it cannot be assumed that they are, in fact, the perpetrators.
People close to the men have spoken of how non political and westernised the men were, despite reports of their apparent devotion to their religion. Jamal Lindsay's mother told of how he cried when he watched the events of 9/11, wondering how people could do such things. Tanweer's friends told of how he wore his baseball cap to Mosque. A white British teenage girl in Leeds told of her secret relationship with Hasib Hussain, and Sidique Khan was widely regarded as extremely compassionate, not just within the Muslim community but in the wider locality as well.
As the one with some links to the establishment, Khan may have been the link person who recruited the others for some person or company who (he didn't realise) was working for MI5 - and/or CIA - and/or Mossad.
http://www.blogigo.co.uk/socialdemocracynow/entry/43524
Ex MI5 officer David Shayler has spoken of how the secret services would fund terrorist plots in order to frame a certain group or achieve a political aim. In 1996, after being briefed about an MI6 funded plot to assassinate Colonel Gadhafi of Libya, which failed, killing many innocent civilians, Shayler submitted a series of articles blowing the whistle on his previous employers because he could no longer be complicit with such operations.
There are many Muslims all over the world tortured and locked up on flimsy evidence simply to create a climate of fear and intimidation - for both Muslims and non-Muslims alike. David and his partner Annie Machon, also a former MI5 employee have information which points to the innocence of two Palestinians, Samar Alami and Jawad Botmeh, now in their 10th year of a 20 year imposed prison sentence for explosives offences.
http://www.freesaj.org.uk/ (Click on MI5 cover-up confirmed)
More information on state sponsored terrorism can be found here.
9. The original story of power surges which MetroNet reported at the time of the incidents was correct and the exploding bus in Tavistock Square was related to a long-planned anti-terror 'exercise'.
Why would the train operating companies running the London Underground lie about the source of the explosions on the trains? When asked about the source of the power surge story, a response from London Underground stated the following:
"I'm afraid it's not accurate to say that the information given about a power surge was a 'story'. When the explosions happened, obviously they broke the track circuit. On the computer systems at network control, such a big break would look the same as a power surge. It's worth pointing out that we have never been the victim of a terrorist attack of this kind before, but on 28 August 2003 a power surge knocked out about half of the network. Such a surge can be accompanied by explosions. In other words, all the evidence we had at the time (including the information from the drivers) and our experience pointed to a power surge, so that's what we said it was. This information was given in good faith."
Source: Reply from London Underground
Indeed, Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone said the following at a 7 July Review Comittee Meeting on March 1st 2006:
"You could have had a power surge with a quite catastrophic casualty level. We have always been aware of that on the Underground."
Ken Livingstone
7th July Review Committee, March 1st, 2006
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