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<a href="http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2006/08/the_uk_terror_p.html">
http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2006/08/the_uk_terror_p.html</a><br>
<br>
<dd>The UK Terror plot: what's really going on?<br>
<dd>Craig Murray<br>
<dd>August 14, 2006<br><br>
<dd>I have been reading very carefully through all the Sunday newspapers
to try<br>
<dd>and analyse the truth from all the scores of pages claiming to detail
the<br>
<dd>so-called bomb plot. Unlike the great herd of so-called security
experts<br>
<dd>doing the media analysis, I have the advantage of having had the
very<br>
<dd>highest security clearances myself, having done a huge amount of<br>
<dd>professional intelligence analysis, and having been inside the spin
machine.<br><br>
<dd>So this, I believe, is the true story.<br><br>
<dd>None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a
plane<br>
<dd>ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency
of the<br>
<dd>UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for
quite some<br>
<dd>time.<br><br>
<dd>In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases
passports, it<br>
<dd>could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt
that<br>
<dd>individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever
rash<br>
<dd>stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.<br><br>
<dd>What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for
over a<br>
<dd>year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims.
Like<br>
<dd>me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early
arrests.<br><br>
<dd>Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this
amazing plot<br>
<dd>to blow up multiple planes - which, rather extraordinarily, had not
turned<br>
<dd>up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the
Pakistani<br>
<dd>dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries. As I
witnessed<br>
<dd>in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information this
way.<br>
<dd>Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might
want,<br>
<dd>and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it
doesn't<br>
<dd>give is the truth.<br><br>
<dd>The gentleman being "interrogated" had fled the UK after
being wanted for<br>
<dd>questioning over the murder of his uncle some years ago. That might
be felt<br>
<dd>to cast some doubt on his reliability. It might also be felt that
factors<br>
<dd>other than political ones might be at play within these
relationships. Much<br>
<dd>is also being made of large transfers of money outside the formal
economy.<br>
<dd>Not in fact too unusual in the British Muslim community, but if
this<br>
<dd>activity is criminal, there are many possibilities that have nothing
to do<br>
<dd>with terrorism.<br><br>
<dd>We then have the extraordinary question of Bush and Blair discussing
the<br>
<dd>possible arrests over the weekend. Why? I think the answer to that is
plain.<br>
<dd>Both in desperate domestic political trouble, they longed for
"Another<br>
<dd>9/11". The intelligence from Pakistan, however dodgy, gave them
a new 9/11<br>
<dd>they could sell to the media. The media has bought, wholesale, all
the<br>
<dd>rubbish they have been shovelled.<br><br>
<dd>We then have the appalling political propaganda of John Reid,
Home<br>
<dd>Secretary, making a speech warning us all of the dreadful evil
threatening<br>
<dd>us and complaining that "Some people don't get" the need to
abandon all our<br>
<dd>traditional liberties. He then went on, according to his own
propaganda<br>
<dd>machine, to stay up all night and minutely direct the arrests. There
could<br>
<dd>be no clearer evidence that our Police are now just a political tool.
Like<br>
<dd>all the best nasty regimes, the knock on the door came in the middle
of the<br>
<dd>night, at 2.30am. Those arrested included a mother with a six week
old baby.<br><br>
<dd>For those who don't know, it is worth introducing Reid. A hardened
Stalinist<br>
<dd>with a long term reputation for personal violence, at Stirling
Univeristy he<br>
<dd>was the Communist Party's "Enforcer", (in days when the
Communist Party ran<br>
<dd>Stirling University Students' Union, which it should not be forgotten
was a<br>
<dd>business with a very substantial cash turnover). Reid was sent to
beat up<br>
<dd>those who deviated from the Party line.<br><br>
<dd>We will now never know if any of those arrested would have gone on to
make a<br>
<dd>bomb or buy a plane ticket. Most of them do not fit the
"Loner" profile you<br>
<dd>would expect - a tiny percentage of suicide bombers have happy
marriages and<br>
<dd>young children. As they were all under surveillance, and certainly
would<br>
<dd>have been on airport watch lists, there could have been little danger
in<br>
<dd>letting them proceed closer to maturity - that is certainly what we
would<br>
<dd>have done with the IRA.<br><br>
<dd>In all of this, the one thing of which I am certain is that the
timing is<br>
<dd>deeply political. This is more propaganda than plot. Of the over
one<br>
<dd>thousand British Muslims arrested under anti-terrorist legislation,
only<br>
<dd>twelve per cent are ever charged with anything. That is simply
harrassment<br>
<dd>of Muslims on an appalling scale. Of those charged, 80% are
acquitted. Most<br>
<dd>of the very few - just over two per cent of arrests - who are
convicted, are<br>
<dd>not convicted of anything to do terrorism, but of some minor offence
the<br>
<dd>Police happened upon while trawling through the wreck of the lives
they had<br>
<dd>shattered.<br><br>
<dd>Be sceptical. Be very, very sceptical.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>----------<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>As Britain's outspoken Ambassador to the Central<br>
<dd>Asian Republic of Uzbekistan, Craig Murray helped<br>
<dd>expose vicious human rights abuses by the <br>
<dd>US-funded regime of Islam Karimov. He is now <br>
<dd>a prominent critic of Western policy in the region.<br><br>
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