London bombings: Why does Blair oppose an inquiry into intelligence failures?
By Chris Marsden
13 July 2005
Speaking in Parliament this week, Prime Minister Tony Blair rejected demands from the Conservative Party opposition for an inquiry into the July 7 London bombings that have so far have resulted in 52 confirmed deaths.
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Assertions that an investigation into the workings of the British government in the run-up to the bombings would be a “diversion” are a means by which the ruling elite defends itself from scrutiny. Those who will suffer the consequences are millions of working people, who are being asked to sacrifice their democratic rights. Every day brings fresh demands for greater repressive measures.
The government insists, on the one hand, that the so-called “war against terrorism” is the single most important issue facing the world, while on the other it maintains that the public does not have a right to know how the bomb attacks on London, resulting in the greatest loss of life in a terror attack on British soil since World War II, were allowed to happen.
Even if the government were to relent and acquiesce to a probe of its role in the events of July 7, no confidence could be placed in any investigation carried out by the establishment parties and the British state. They would serve a similar function as the official inquiries conducted in the US—to obscure the most vital facts, provide a rationale for further attacks on democratic rights at home, and justify militarism and aggression abroad. Any genuinely independent investigation can come about only as the product of an independent political movement of the working class against the ruling elite and its policies of war and social reaction.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/lond-j13.shtml