Debunking 7/7 Debunking Part Three

The July 7th Inquests got underway last week and have so far provided a pantomime of disinformation and farcical arguments. Just as with the 2009 Intelligence and Security Committee report and the BBC Conspiracy Files episode on the London bombings of the same year, one of the primary concerns of the inquests has been to debunk and oppose 'conspiracy theories'. Hence, it is time for a new installment of the popular 'debunking 7/7 debunking' series, dealing with the fatuous and misleading arguments used in opposition to such 'conspiracy theories'. Those readers looking for a comparatively dispassionate analysis of the inquests should check out the dedicated blog from the July 7th Truth Campaign. Those looking for intelligent outrage at the pure codswallop we are expected to keep swallowing regarding 7/7 should take a look at Famous for 15 Megapixels. Both have provided far more sincere and earnest coverage of the inquests than anyone working in the mainstream media.

The 7/7 Inquests are taking place under the Coroners and Justice Act of 2009, which outlines exactly what are the purposes of such an investigation:

Purpose of Investigation
5
Matters to be ascertained
(1)
The purpose of an investigation under this Part into a person's death is to ascertain—
(a) who the deceased was;
(b) how, when and where the deceased came by his or her death;
(c) the particulars (if any) required by the 1953 Act to be registered concerning the death. - Coroners and Justice Act 2009

However, the 7/7 Inquests have systematically failed from the very opening day to fulfill these requirements. In the morning of 11th October the hearing opened with a statement by Lady Justice Hallet referring to "the deaths of the 52 innocent people who were killed as a result of the bombs in London on 7 July 2005." Before any investigation had taken place, a conclusive verdict on the cause of death of all 52 victims had been presented. Given that one of the questions the inquest is meant to be objectively examining is whether the emergency services could have responded more quickly and effectively, this opening statement is misleading at best. Even if we presume that the official version of events is true, there remains the possibility of some of the victims having died due to the delay in getting them emergency medical treatment. This would mean that they did not die just as a result of bombs going off, but also as a result of not being attended to sufficiently quickly. Beyond that, there is the issue of the inquests into the deaths of the four alleged bombers having been postponed until after the present inquests into the other 52 deaths. There is only a slim possibility of this happening, but if the inquests into the alleged bombers' deaths concludes anything other than that they died in intentional self-inflicted suicide bombings, the present inquests would prove to be a load of nonsense.

The inquests continued with a re-affirmation of the official version of events, namely that four British Muslims travelled to London and intentionally blew themselves up using homemade explosives. This re-affirmation was done using the sort of editorialised language more appropriate for a tabloid newspaper than a legal proceeding. Again, from the opening morning of the inquests, the counsel for the inquests (i.e. the government's lawyer) Hugo Keith QC, said:

The slaughter caused by the bombs caused not only
death, devastation and mutilation, but unleashed an
unimaginable tidal wave of shock, misery and horror for
their families and loved ones. Just as the lives of the
52 victims were callously and brutally ended, the lives
of many others have been, and continue to be, tortured
and wrecked. The bombs could only have had one purpose.
They were intended to kill and to injure. They were
acts of merciless savagery and one can only imagine at
the sheer inhumanity of the perpetrators. - July 7th Inquests, 11th Oct

While it is true that the death of loved ones is immensely painful for the bereaved, and they are more than worthy of our sympathy, this sort of language is not about expressing common human empathy and consideration. It is about writing the mainstream media's headlines for them, as demonstrated by this Telegraph story titled '7/7 inquest: London bombings were 'unimaginable wave of horror' and this Guardian story titled '7/7 inquest: victims killed by 'merciless savagery'. The use of words like 'carnage', 'horror' and 'merciless savagery' is designed to encourage those following the inquests to become lost in psychological disgust and not to engage their critical faculties and question what they are being told. Philosopher David Hume claimed that "reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions." While the truth of this may be disputed, what is clear is that passions can be manipulated to cloud or even prevent reason from having an influence on what people end up believing.

This editorial rhetoric continued as the inquests progressed. On the second day of hearings, new footage was released on the inquests' website, and can be watched here. The video clips are taken from film shot in the hours and days immediately following the bombings, by emergency service workers, and show the aftermath of the explosions on the trains and bus. The videos have been reproduced by media outlets, capitalising on Keith's characterisation of the footage as 'distressing' and even going further, this ITN article describing it as a 'shocking video of carnage'. In reality the videos show very little and for a public who've experienced such horrific cinematic products as the Saw film franchise and recent gore fest The Human Centipede the images are relatively tame. For those who were on the trains and bus, or lost loved one, any such pictures would be distressing, regardless of what they actually showed or didn't show. Furthermore, Keith admitted that the clips had been 'edited and re-edited' to ensure none of the deceased can be seen, sharply contradicting the portrayal of this footage in the major media as 'horrific' and 'shocking'. Not only is this manipulative to the point of outright deception, it is also potentially illegal. The Coroners and Justice Act says explicitly that:

Neither the senior coroner conducting an investigation under this Part into a person's death nor the jury (if there is one) may express any opinion on any matter other than—
(a) the questions mentioned in subsection (1)(a) and (b) (read with subsection (2) where applicable);
(b) the particulars mentioned in subsection (1)(c). - Coroners and Justice Act 2009

While this provision only prohibits the coroner and jury from expressing such opinions, the spirit of the law means that it also covers the legal team advising the coroner. The sorts of comments made by Hugo Keith clearly involve expressing opinions on far more than just the issues of who died, when, where and how, in that they seek to describe the emotional reactions of the survivors and bereaved. One might even say that such inflammatory language glorifies terrorism, turning it from acts of violence motivated by desperation or prejudice or stupidity into acts that define our politics, our emotions and our way of life. Glorification of terrorism is contrary to the 2006 Terrorism Act, though I wouldn't recommend holding your breath and waiting for Keith to be charged. If, as then Prime Minister Tony Blair said on the afternoon of 7/7, the purpose of terrorism is to terrorise people, then Hugo Keith is doing the terrorists work for them.

Another bizarre story emanating from the opening week of the Inquests was that the alleged 7/7 ringleader Mohammed Siddique Khan sent a text message to his supposed co-conspirators on the 6th of July. This allegedly delayed the attacks by a day because Khan's wife was having complications with her pregnancy:

Examination of Khan's mobile telephone
which was recovered from the tunnel between Kings Cross
and Russell Square showed that he sent a text message at
04.35 in the morning of 6 July saying:
"Having major problem. Can't make time. Will ring
you when I get it sorted. Wait at home."

So it may have been that the attack was originally
planned for a different day. - July 7th Inquests, 11th October

As with so many stories floated as part of the War on Terror, there is much about this that doesn't ring true, or at least doesn't support what officials have advanced. For one, why was Khan's phone found in the tunnel between Kings' Cross and Russell Square tube stations when he is meant to have been responsible for a different explosion, miles away at Edgware Road? Just as his property and ID were found at three of the blast locations, this will appear to many people to smack of planted evidence. For another, why would a man supposedly following a jihadi ideology to the extent of killing himself and others care so much about his pregnant wife and unborn child? If the original plan was to carry out a 'martyrdom operation' on the 6th of July then why delay it for the sake of a wife he was never going to see again, and a child he would never see? Looked at the other way, if he was so concerned about his wife and unborn child that he delayed the mission then why did he kill himself? It doesn't add up. Just as it doesn't add up that Khan, a British Pakistani and alleged Islamic fundamentalist, would have married a Westernised woman of Indian descent. Given the animosity felt by both Pakistanis and Indians over the disputed region of Kashmir, this appears a highly unlikely union if Khan was what the police and government have told us he was.

Rather than acknowledge these problems, let alone discuss them, Hugo Keith preferred to adopt a strategy utilised by the 9/11 Commission. The opening day of the Inquests provided ample evidence that debunking 'conspiracy theories' was a crucial aim of the proceedings.

Thus it is
to be hoped that these inquests, however unpleasant and
distressing, as they will be, will assist in answering
the families' questions in allaying some of the rumours
and suspicion generated by conspiracy theorists...

..My Lady, I have mentioned this evidence because
a number of unlikely conspiracy theories have been aired
in the press and on the internet...

...We consider it important that such claims are
identified and addressed...

...Where such claims do not appear to be supported by
the evidence that has been gathered, there is, we feel,
a danger that the continuation of such claims might
needlessly distress the bereaved families as well as
detracting attention away from the issues that you have
identified as being worthy of further investigation. - July 7th Inquests, October 11th

While it may be true that unfounded speculation by 'conspiracy theorists' has caused distress to the survivors and bereaved, this pales in comparison to the distress caused by the unfounded speculation of the official versions of events; the fact that the government, police and MI5 have consistently failed to release evidence proving the truth or falsehood of the official version; the fact that every key element of the official story has been revised (except that Khan et al were responsible); the fact that it has taken over five years for inquests to be held; and the fact that every request and demand for a proper inquiry has been refused and ridiculed. A few 'conspiracy theorists on the internet' simply cannot have caused anything close to the degree of frustration and confusion caused by the actions of the authorities of the state, no matter how whacky or speculative their claims might be.  

Despite this, the above comments show that debunking 'conspiracy theories/theorists' is very much what the Inquests are hoping to achieve, certainly more so than their legally mandated duties outlined above. Keith even admitted that:

It is not a proper
function of an inquest to attribute blame or apportion
guilt, or a proper function of mine to express opinions
on impermissible areas. - July 7th Inquests, 11th October

This did not stop him from devoting a large proportion of his opening day statement to apportioning blame, to reaffirming the official narrative, and in general to using a supposedly unbiased judicial process for the political purpose of opposing and criticising 'conspiracy theories'. This perception of such theories, or even just the well-founded questioning and analysis offered by those such as the July 7th Truth Campaign, is entirely in keeping with the work of Cass Sunstein, and the more recent report published by the DEMOS thinktank. Both view 'conspiracy theories' as a political problem, a threat to public confidence in the powerful institutions of the state (and presumably their bosom buddies in the corporate world). Both advocate covert and overt opposition to such theories as a means of restoring such confidence. In Sunstein's list of possible government activites against 'conspiracy theories' he wrote:

(3) Government might itself engage in counterspeech, marshaling arguments to discredit conspiracy theories. (4) Government might formally hire credible private parties to engage in counterspeech. (5) Government might engage in informal communication with such parties, encouraging them to help. - Sunstein, 2008

Likewise, DEMOS also put forth a policy of infiltration:

Government agents or their allies should openly infiltrate the
Internet sites or spaces to plant doubts about conspiracy theories,
introducing alternative information. - DEMOS, The Power of Unreason

If Hugo Keith QC has been officially or unofficially tasked with infiltrating the space that is the July 7th Inquests with the specific mission of trying to debunk 'conspiracy theories' about 7/7, it would not be much of a surprise. As noted on the July 7th Truth Campaign's Inquest blog, Keith's background is very much one of a state-sponsored legal hatchet man. A quick glance at his background, detailed here, shows that he defended the Queen at the inquests into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed, perhaps the highest profile effort by the British state to debunk the 'conspiracy theory' that they were killed by MI6 at the behest of the Royal family. Keith also represented David Mills and Silvio Berlusconi in a major money laundering and tax fraud case in Italy. Among his other work was helping the Secretary of State extradite Gary McKinnon, who hacked into the Pentagon looking for evidence of UFOs and extraterrestrials. Keith also helped the Director of Public Prosecutions resist prosecuting anyone in the police for the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes. He also helped the Serious Fraud Office defend the decision to end the investigation into corruption in deals between the major British arms manufacturer BAE Systems and one of their major clients, the state of Saudi Arabia. Most recently, Keith's skills were put to helping the police justify shooting barrister Mark Saunders five times, a decision the inquest into Saunders' death judged to be 'self defence'. When it comes to defending the violence and corruption of the state, Keith is more than happy to take public money and use his status and education to further that aim. As such, if there was state involvement in the bombings of 7/7 then it is no surprise to see Keith once again turn up and perform his 'duty'.

The QC's pièce de résistance in the July 7th Inquests, at least so far, came in his efforts to oppose the idea that the four alleged bombers may have been set up as patsies - a possibility considered in the recent film 7/7: Seeds of Deconstruction, which was submitted to the counsel for the Inquests and all the lawyers representing survivors and the bereaved. Keith said:

There is no evidence at all that we have seen to
suggest that the bombers were duped in some way so that
they did not know that they were going to die or, even
more absurdly, that they did not know that they were
carrying explosives at all. Indeed, such claims run
entirely contrary to all the evidence that I have
summarised so far.
It is right to say that the bombers were
surprisingly effective, it would seem, in concealing
their intentions from those around them. Tanweer played
cricket in the evening before putting the terrible plot
into effect and seemed more concerned, according to his
family, by the loss of his mobile phone. - July 7th Inquests, 11th October

Again pinching his lines from the 9/11 Commission, Keith claimed there 'is no evidence at all that we have seen' indicating that the alleged bombers were unintentional victims of the bombings. Employing a truly remarkable degree of doublethink, he then cited just the sort of evidence that does indicate this, i.e. that Shehzad Tanweer played cricket on the evening before 7/7.  By contrast, one might expect a jihadi fundamentalist on the verge of a suicide mission to be spending that time making last minute checks and preparations, or praying. This is the same Tanweer who in the supposed 'dummy run' CCTV footage showing only three of the alleged bombers going to London a few days before 7/7 is seen wearing a t-shirt branded by the Western sportswear firm Puma.

However, even though Keith says they have seen no such evidence he tacitly admits that Tanweer playing cricket is such evidence, by describing this and other indications as part of an effort at 'concealing their intentions'. This is purely circular, and complete balderdash.  Evidence that the men weren't knowing suicide bombers isn't actually evidence they weren't knowing suicide bombers, but evidence that they were concealing the fact that they were suicide bombers. The notion that they were suicide bombers is both a premise of the argument, and the argument's conclusion. It is only if you believe they were guilty that you could possibly interpret Tanweer's behaviour in this light, and claiming it as evidence of their guilt is a remarkable feat of twisted logic. This was not the only self-contradictory argument employed. The less than integral QC also cited as evidence of the alleged bombers intent videos that appeared at highly convenient times for the official narrative:

If there were any residual doubts, these are further
answered by two other pieces of evidence: Tanweer's
so-called last will and testament, which appeared a year
later on the internet, in which he seeks to justify
attacks, and the footage of Khan which appeared on
Al Jazeera, on 1 September 2005, to similar effect.
Those parts of the videos that showed them at any
rate must of course have been prepared prior to 7 July,
and thus, on account of their content, demonstrate that
their views had been held for some time. Indeed, the
release of the videos reinforces the terrorist dimension
of the attacks. They were made to be released following
the attacks themselves. - July 7th Inquests, 11th October

The two videos referred to are so-called 'martyrdom tapes', the first of which appeared at the beginning of September 2005, just as questions began circulating in the major media about whether the bombings were in fact suicide attacks. The second appeared on the day before the first anniversary of the attacks, on the 6th of July 2006. Though Keith went to great lengths to cast doubt on 'conspiracy theorists on the internet', he evidently had no qualms at all about citing videos of unknown provenance that appeared on the internet and used to help advance the official conspiracy theory. In this context, his comment that 'the release of the videos reinforces the terrorist dimension of the attacks' is perhaps an ironic confession. Though the authenticity of both videos has been questioned, let us assume for the sake of argument that they are genuine.

Neither video contains any mention of attacking the London public transport system, suicide bombings, or indeed any terrorist attack of any kind. As the above clips show, the mainstream media instantly seized upon the videos as evidence of the four alleged bombers guilt, even though they are at best evidence of only two of the four having vaguely jihadish beliefs. Not a single mainstream outlet has bothered to ask 'where are the equivalent videos for Hasib Hussein and Germaine Lindsay?' Put another way, Khan and Tanweer making such videos is not evidence of the guilt of others who knew them, yet this is exactly the argument the rogue QC has employed. What is particularly strange about the second item above, courtesy of the BBC, is that they interviewed Azzam Tamimi, an 'Islamic academic'. Tamimi trotted out the BBC's desired script about the videos, but he himself is an open supporter of Hamas, and has praised suicide bombers. He did this both before 7/7, in a 2004 interview for the BBC show Hardtalk, and after 7/7, in a speech where he said:

The greatest act of martyrdom is standing up for what is true and just. - Daily Mail, 2006

As such, Tamimi has made far more incriminating statements (however true or untrue they may be) than either Khan or Tanweer made in their 'martyrdom videos', and yet the BBC are happy to continue using Tamimi as a pundit, all the while reporting on the Khan/Tanweer tapes as proof of their guilt. This goes beyond mere doublethink and double standards. It is the height of journalistic hypocrisy and propaganda.

So, given that the opening of the July 7th Inquests has proven to be a huge disappointment for anyone seeking the truth about what happened, what are we to expect from the next few months of proceedings? The Provisional Index of Factual Issues and the timeline for what the Inquests will cover in the next four or five months are both weighted heavily on the question of 'preventability', i.e. the title of the 2009 ISC report 'Could 7/7 Have Been Prevented?' Having presumed what happened and who was responsible, this final part of the Inquests will examine whether or not the police and MI5 had enough information to have interdicted the bombing plot, and will serve to determine the boundaries of future discussions about 7/7 in the same way as the opening statements analysed above. In all likelihood, the Inquests will conclude that MI5 and the police were not sufficiently vigilant in their battle against the great terrorism menace. The upshot of asking the questions in this way is that MI5 in particular will be portrayed as not being paranoid enough to confront the 'real and serious' threat that we are facing. Even though their investigations have led to such ridiculous and corrupt convictions as that of paintballer Mohammed Hamid, they will be encouraged to become ever more suspicious of British Muslims in the name of stopping another attack from happening. The likely outcome is that this will then be exploited by our political masters to justify increasingly vicious counterterrorism policy and legislation, as has consistently been the case over the five years since the London bombings.

7/7: Seeds of Deconstruction

With the fifth anniversary of 7/7 coming and going with the slightest of official acknowledgment and with no sign of an official inquiry, it remains up to the independent media and campaigners to keep up the pressure on the authorities. In that vein, Howard Beale's News Hour is pleased to present the feature-length documentary 7/7: Seeds of Deconstruction. A 2 1/2 hour production, 7/7: Seeds of Deconstruction is an extensive exploration of many of the questions and conspiracy theories about the bombings in London on July 7th 2005. Comprised of footage gleaned from mainstream news websites and youtube, it situates the debate about July 7th firmly in the context of the lengthy history of Western covert operations, and the ongoing policy of the global 'War on Terror'. The first part of the film covers three specific periods - Central America circa 1954-63, Italy from 1945-1990, and Afghanistan/Pakistan/the Balkans from 1979-present day. The exploration of Operation PBSUCCESS - the overthrow of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz - Operation Pluto/Zapata - the invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs - Operation Gladio - NATO's false flag terrorism in Europe - and Operation Cyclone - the CIA's sponsorship of the mujahideen in Afghanistan - focuses largely on the psychological warfare elements of these black ops, including their attempts to manipulate the media and public opinion.

Though not by any means a comprehensive history of such operations, this exploration provides ample evidence of official deceptions, black operations and false flag sponsorship of terrorism. These tactics are nothing new. Though it is perhaps a mythical account of events that may or may not have actually happened, Homer's Iliad provides a wonderful example of the value and power of such military tactics. One of the oldest works in Western literature, it tells the story of several weeks of the decade-long siege of Ilion by an alliance of different states from what we now called Greece. Commonly known as the Trojan War, the conflict showed how deception was an inherent part of Europe's first great empire.

The Iliad primarily tells the story of period where a quarrel between King Agamemnon (overlord of Mycenae and Argos) and Achilles (the legendary warrior who was virtually invulnerable) saw the Greeks being forced back towards the beaches near Troy, in what is now Turkey. As told in books 15 and 16 of the Iliad, as the Trojan forces threatened the Greek ships, a Greek soldier named Patroclus rushed to Achilles, his cousin, to try to persuade him to rejoin the fighting. Achilles refused, saying to get back in touch with him when the Trojan reached his own flotilla of around 50 vessels. However, Achilles did concede to allowing Patroclus wear his armour and lead his soldiers, the fearsome Myrmidons, into battle to help the other Greek forces. This provided the dual benefit of enabling Patroclus to lead Greece's best soldiers back into the fray and also scaring the Trojans into believing that the awesome Achilles had rejoined the battle. However, pride got the better of Patroclus and once he'd saved the ship he pursued the Trojans inland and ended up being killed by the Trojan hero Hector. This brought Achilles back into the battle and he killed Hector to avenge his cousin, trailing the body around the walls of the city of Troy behind his chariot. The conflict culminated with the Trojan Horse, the best known false flag attack of all time. At least until 9/11 anyway.

What might we make of this in modern times? Whether this actually happened, in this way, is impossible to know. At best we make educated guesses as to history before the written record. However, it is important to realise that without the psychological effect of Achilles' armor, the Greeks might have lost the Trojan War at that point. Violence on its own is half as effective, if even that, compared to violence combined with an intelligence propaganda and deception strategy, what are now known as psychological operations. Patroclus not only deceived his enemy, the Trojans, but also his allies, the Myrmidons commanded by Achilles. The equivalent today is one interpretation of 'Al Qaeda', i.e. Osama Bin Laden, Anwar Al Awlaki, Ayamn Zawahiri, Omar Bakri and so on. They serve as a object of fixation for our foreign policy, an 'enemy image' such as that talked about by neoconservative intellectual Carl Schmitt, this much is widely recognised. However, they also serve as an object of fixation for the many disenfranchised, alienated or just angry/unhappy Muslims of the world, a 'hero image' like Achilles armor.

Bin Laden in particular is an increasingly obvious psyop. His latest tape, a comparatively rational call for help for the flood-stricken areas of Pakistan, is not a call to arms like his two fatwas of the 1990s, or his other recordings of the 2000s, and so indicates a shift in policy. Though Bin Laden the man has probably been dead for years, Bin Laden the symbol, the image, can live on indefinitely. So, whoever the speaker on the tape actually is, their attack on the failings of the Pakistani government to deal with the floods that have so far claimed thousands of lives and rendered millions homeless, only serves to foment instability in a country increasingly being seen as a target by Western foreign policy makers. This makes far more sense if Bin Laden is a Western psyop than if he's an Islamic fundamentalist seeking to destroy the West and establish a caliphate. In this role, he not only provides the means for very real violence (the war in Afghanistan, most obviously) that excuses our foreign policy, but also for the psychological violence of our domestic policy. Just as young Muslims in Pakistan are turned towards joining the mujahideen or Taleban, inspired by Bin Laden and his ilk, young Muslims in the UK and elsewhere are turned towards acts of petty (or non-existent) criminality. This provides a justification for the destruction of civil liberties and for the arrest of hundreds of mostly young Muslim men who are instantly labelled 'terror suspects'. Assuming Bin Laden is not a complete fucking idiot, why would he so willingly play this role given how convenient it is to those advancing the 'war on terror' ideology, now rebranded as the 'struggle with violent extremism'?

Into this context came 7/7, the bombings in London on July 7th 2005. The explosions on the underground supposedly took place at 8:50 a.m. and the news broke at around 9:15. For over an hour the news media unanimously reported that 'power surges' were to blame, and that the explosions were primarily electrical in nature. At 9:47 a bus blew up in central London, and the story began to shift. At around 10:45 the BBC began reporting that the security services had informed BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner that they believed the explosions were bombings caused by Al Qaeda. This set off a chain of comments from officials and media commentators that that the events 'bore all the hallmarks of Al Qaeda', even though Al Qaeda as it is officially identified had never attacked public transport systems before. The 2004 Madrid train bombings were, at least according to the Spanish government, perpetrated by a local Spanish/North African Islamist group, who had no connection to Bin Laden. A two-year investigation in Spain found no evidence of an Al Qaeda link, and so unless MI5 knew something the Spanish authorities did not, MI5 had no evidence of Al Qaeda being involved in Madrid, hence had no evidence that attacks on the London public transport system 'bore all the hallmarks of Al Qaeda'. That they were making this claim less than two hours after the initial explosions very strongly suggests a cover story, and hence a psyop. That they were making this claim through an anonymous claim via the state-funded broadcaster pretty much confirms a cover story, and hence a psyop.

Curiously, the security services then went into a complete reverse, saying that the bombings were carried out by four homegrown 'self-radicalised' suicide bombers, working entirely alone, with no connection to a wider network and no connection to Al Qaeda. The phrase 'clean skins' was bandied around like it was going out of fashion, with the intelligence service lurching from being so sure who was responsible less than 2 hours after the initial phase of the bombings to claiming to have had no foreknowledge whatsoever. MI5 and Special Branch said they had no records of the men alleged to have been responsible, and therefore were completely innocent of any 'intelligence failure' in their mission to stop this exact sort of attack. This became the official story, published in the second report of May 2006, written by the Intelligence and Security Committee. However, the report contradicts this broad conclusion, stating:

36. Investigations since July have shown that the group was in contact with others involved in extremism in the UK, including a number of people who ***. There is no intelligence to indicate that there was a fifth or further bombers.

37. Siddeque Khan is now known to have visited Pakistan in 2003 and to have spent several months there with Shazad Tanweer between November 2004 and February 2005. It has not yet been established who they met in Pakistan, but it is assessed as likely that they had some contact with Al Qaida figures.

(...)

55. It is also clear that, prior to the 7 July attacks, the Security Service had come across Siddeque Khan and Shazad Tanweer on the peripheries of other surveillance and investigative operations. - ISC Report, 2006

Far from being 'clean skins' with no connection to any kind of wider network, two of the alleged bombers had visited Pakistan where MI5 presumed they met Al Qaeda figures, and the same two (Khan and Tanweer) had been observed by MI5 as part of an investigation into a suspected terrorist group in Britain.

More information about this came to light during the trial of the 'fertiliser bomb plotters', i.e. Omar Khyam and his miscellaneous associates. The suspects in this plot had been arrested in March/April 2004, and though they had been photographed, videotaped and bugged talking to Khan and Tanweer, MI5 did nothing to follow up the two men who would allegedly become suicide bombers a year later. An excerpt from this surveillance can be watched here. It was also claimed in the trial that the mastermind of the fertiliser bomb plot was a man known as 'Q' but named after the trial as Mohammed Quayyum Khan. However, 'Q' was never arrested, never questioned about his role in the plot, never called as a witness at the trial. Suspicions abound that he was a double agent, an informant for MI5 and/or Special Branch. This is of particular importance to 7/7 because at the fertiliser bomb plot trial it was claimed that 'Q' was 'instrumental' in getting Mohammed Siddique Khan, the alleged 7/7 ringleader, to Pakistan in 2003.

While there, Mohammed Siddique Khan, along with the supposed leader of the fertiliser plot Omar Khyam, received 'terror training' at a camp in Malakand set up by Mohammed Junaid Babar. Babar is a Pakistani American who grew up in New York, but apparently set out to participate in the jihad in Afghanistan after he was inspired by watching the 9/11 attacks. He set up the camp in Malakand, and provided training to two alleged ringleaders. Junaid Babar gave a couple of inflammatory interviews when he first left the US, saying he was going to 'kill every American I see' in Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to the Washington Post:

U.S. counterterrorism officials said Babar first hit their radar screen in late 2001, after the incendiary comments he made to ITN were broadcast. - Dan Eggen, Washington Post

Babar returned to the US in April 2004 and a few days later the FBI arrested. According to the Feds he was turned and became an informant almost immediately, but the indications are that he'd at least been under surveillance, if not an active double agent, since late in 2001. He became the 'Al Qaeda supergrass', a term purloined from the days of prosecutions of the Mafia, and was the key witness at the fertiliser bomb plot trial, and the trial of three men alleged to have been co-conspirators to the 7/7 plot.

This doesn't add up. If Babar was a compliant informant in 2004, then even if he didn't identify the alleged 7/7 bombers at that time he certainly identified them after the bombings had happened. According to the above Washington Post article:

He has identified at least one of the suicide bombers, Mohammed Sidique Khan, through photographs and has provided other details that may be helpful in unraveling the plot, according to law enforcement and intelligence sources. - Washington Post

As such, MI5 knew in the latter part of 2005 who it was that Mohammed Siddique Khan met in Pakistan in 2003, and so that the ISC couldn't figure it out in 2006 beggars belief. It became clear that the intelligence services and the authorities employed to oversee their work were not telling the truth about what they knew and when they knew it.

This is only one of many crucial elements of the official story of 7/7 that has been radically revised over time. Everything from the nature of the explosives used to the direction and location of the tube trains hit by the bombings, to the extent to which the security services had opportunities to interdict the plot has been rewritten in truly Orwellian fashion. Each new version is heralded by the mainstream media as 'the truth' and each prior version left behind as an irrelevance. Ultimately, those who talk of 'the official story' or 'the official version' are referring to a plural entity, chock full of internal contradictions, and subject to massive external contradictions with all of its various bedfellows over the years of revision. Hence the title of the film, '7/7: Seeds of Deconstruction', as the official story contains the tools for its own dismantling, the blossom of its own falling apart. Like the ancient cities of Latin America, now taken back by the forests and jungle, it is an artifice, perhaps designed to be subject to ever increasing change and redrafting. Given this perpetual destabilising of the key aspects of the government's story we can be forgiven for asking why it is that the only constant aspect of the story that the four alleged bombers were responsible. You can watch 7/7: Seeds of Deconstruction in sections on youtube, or via the embedded player below.

You can also watch or download the film on stagevu, and likewise via blip.tv. With the inquests due to begin for real next week I firmly encourage concerned citizens of all stripes to follow proceedings both through the media and on the official inquest website. I will be attempting to cover them in detail on this blog, and there are plans afoot for a followup film to 7/7: Seeds of Deconstruction examining the repeated failure of justice institutions to proceed with impartiality in virtually every aspect of their role in the ongoing war on terror.