by Tom Secker
At the time of the 7th anniversary of the bombings in London, this video reflects on the attacks, the outstanding questions, the efforts to get to the truth and the ongoing cover-up.
Transcript:
On the 7th of July 2005, four bombings in London killed 56 people and wounded several hundred. Three explosions took place on underground trains shortly before 9 a.m. A fourth explosion destroyed a bus about an hour later.
The media’s reporting of the event was extremely confused, speaking of as many as 8 explosions on the underground, which were blamed on electrical power surges. They also reported explosions on three different buses. This somehow evolved into a story of four explosions caused by suicide bombers.
On the evening of the attacks, the major media had already decided who was responsible.
John Gibson: The bombings in London. This is why I thought the Brits should have let the French have the Olympics. Let somebody else worry about guys with backpack bombs for a while.
VO: Weeks, months and even years later the most basic details of what happened are unclear, a mess of contradiction, misreporting and conjecture.We have been told that the four alleged bombers acted alone, but also that there were others who knew what was going to happen.
DAC Peter Clarke: I firmly believe that there are other people who have knowledge of what lay behind the attacks in July 2005 - knowledge that they have not shared with us. In fact, I don't only believe it. I know it for a fact.
VO: The official inquiries by the Intelligence and Security Committee, or ISC, have been a farce. During their first inquiry, they were not shown photos and video surveillance footage of the alleged bombers taken before 7/7. During the second inquiry MI5 gave an inaccurate timeline of what they knew and when. The fact is that MI5 knew a lot more about the alleged bombers than they told the ISC.
Tim Marshall: The ISC concludes that MI5 and the police can’t be criticised for the actions and decisions they took in 2004 and 5 even if there were with hindsight quote ‘missed opportunities’. The victims families say the report is a whitewash. Some sensitive material is censored. The breakdown in communication
between MI5 and the police is not properly dealt with, and the claim that the Saudis warned the UK in advance of 7/7 is completely redacted.
VO: These ‘missed opportunities’ had the effect of concealing the relationships between the alleged bombers and several other significant people. The likelihood is that some of these other men were agents or assets of the security services.
Mark Hargreaves: McDaid definitely wanted hardness training, some sort of, with a military bent to it. Pushing people to their limits, making them work really hard, making them suffer. Basically, those were his words, he wanted them suffer… I wondered if it was about converting people to Islam, if they had a different agenda completely. Taking vulnerable young men, exposing them to literature, to extremist views, testing them, seeing how far they were prepared to
go and them grooming them.
VO: The most basic questions have not yet been answered. What caused the explosions? Who carried them out and how?
Why did these terrorists attack the British public? Why has the government been so resistant to releasing the evidence that could prove whether their story is true? What are they hiding?
Tony Blair: The purpose of terrorism is just that – it is to terrorise people.
‘Queen’ Elizabeth II: Atrocities such as these simply reinforce our sense of community.
VO: Despite the diligent efforts of independent researchers and campaigners, we may never get the answers to these questions. J7 Freedom of information requests have been blocked or delayed, and successive governments have refused to re-open the police investigation or hold an independent inquiry. But the only way we can get answers is to press for further investigation and inquiry, and to do it ourselves. The 7/7 Inquests did not even answer the questions they were legally obliged to answer, let alone those submitted by July 7th truth campaigners. Even after the July 7 inquests into the deaths of the 52 victims, many of the bereaved families feel their questions have been avoided and ignored.
John Taylor: They’ve had five years to prepare for this. They must have known that something like this was going to happen. They had five years to look at their documentation, get it in order, and produce it when required. It appears to me that they stalled on it. I wasn’t happy with the performance of the security services.
Marie Fatayi-Williams: The security services don’t want to have any blame, they don’t want to say, if they made an apology, it meant that they were guilty of something, and if they are guilty of something then it meant that somebody is to blame, and nobody wants to
be blamed, and so 7/7 is to be forgotten.
Graham Foulkes: The evidence that we’ve got today, in this report, I think really causes a lot more questions to be asked than it answers.
VO: For others, to continue fighting for the truth is too painful.
Grahame Russell: I mean everybody’s got issue with various areas. I think there are people with issues with the intelligence services, there are people with issues with the emergency services, my own particular issue with Transport for London, so I think there are still issues. The problem we have, no, the problem I have is that if I continue to hold concerns about issues that went on, my life would become very bitter.
VO: So do what you can to spread information, to investigate 7/7, and to ask these questions of the people who should have the answers, but have so far refused to give them.
For more information about 7/7 please visit:
Download a podcast version and the transcript of this video at:
