OJ: London Underground bombing 'exercises' at same time as real attack

[iconoclastic cat]

Well, f--- me:

London Underground bombing 'exercises' took place at same time as real attack
Culpability cover scenario echoes 9/11 war games

By Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones
Online Journal Guest Writers

July 11, 2005 (Prison Planet)—A consultancy agency with government and police connections was running an exercise for an unnamed company that revolved around the London Underground being bombed at the exact same times and locations as happened in real life on the morning of July 7.

On a BBC Radio 5 interview that aired on the evening of the 7th, the host interviewed Peter Power, Managing Director of Visor Consultants, which bills itself as a 'crisis management' advice company, better known to you and I as a PR firm.

Peter Power was a former Scotland Yard official, working at one time with the Anti-Terrorist Branch.

Power told the host that at the exact same time that the London bombings were taking place, his company was running a 1,000 person strong exercise which drilled the London Underground being bombed at the exact same locations, at the exact same times, as happened in real life.
(more)

http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=3567914">Former NY mayor says London attacks "eerie reminder" of Nine-Eleven

LONDON Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani is describing today's London attacks an "eerie reminder" of Nine-eleven.
He was in London when the bombs went off -- and he describes hearing sirens following the morning explosions.

Same-time-as-attack underground bombing exercise in London a chilling coincidence?
By Judi McLeod & David Hawkins
Saturday, July 9, 2005 9:00 p.m.

Toronto-- Chillingly coincidental, the same 9/11 "war games" conducted during the actual tragedy on the morning of September 11, 2001, echo London underground "bombing exercises" which took place at the same time as the real attack, according to Alex Jones’ Prison Planet.com.

What are the odds of both human tragedies having coincidental "drills" going on at the exact same time real life was taking so many human lives in two terrorist attacks?

And here I am, fresh out of foil.

[ComerPerro]

1. What the fuck?

[iconoclastic cat]

2. It's being censored at dKos.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/11/104237/157

[seemslikeadream]

3. that's not the only place

[tx_dem41]

5. Ummm....how exactly is it being "censored" at dKos....

...when you hyperlink to the story on his site?

[iconoclastic cat]

8. There have been several people whose memberships were revoked.

They were discussing this story, and their diaries were yanked.

[gmoney]

13. Well, Alex Jones...

Alex is the point so far to the right that it starts to resemble the extreme left. The political spectrum isn't a line... it's a circle.

If Alex is right about 10% of his theories, we're in deep deep shit. I'm sure his site was the inspiration for many an X-Files episode. I'm not saying he's wrong or crazy, just that I hope he is!

[iconoclastic cat]

20. Interesting theory! (circular politics)

[rman]

69. Got any sources on AJ's political views?

For all i know he is as opposed to things like NAFTA and corporate rule in general, as many DU-ers.

Opinions differ as to the political spectrum being a circle or a line;

The Encyclopaedia Britannica educational film "Despotism" (1946) makes a strong case for it being a line, with democracy on one end and despotism on the other. Both Left wing and Right wing regimes can be despotic.

http://www.archive.org/details/Despotis1946
"Measures how a society ranks on a spectrum stretching from democracy to despotism. Explains how societies and nations can be measured by the degree that power is concentrated and respect for the individual is restricted. Where does your community, state and nation stand on these scales?"

Producer: Encyclopaedia Britannica Films
Audio/Visual: sound, B&W
Keywords: Political science
Creative Commons license: Public Domain

[bassman79]

73. Alex thinks left-right paradigm is manufactured for public control

Alex considers the left-right political paradigm to be a fraud, a consipiracy if you will. His position is that both major parties are owned by the globalists running things behind the scene. He considers most "left-right" debate to be a distraction and a mental prison which prevents you from seeing the evidence of gov't sponsored terrorism which are in plain view.

[John Doe II]

74. Why does everybody discuss Alex Jones?

The story of Power has been reported by BBC and several days later Powers gave an interview on CBC. Moreover other news article (not in UK) printed the story as well.
So, maybe let's concentrate on what the whole thing is about and not on Alex Jones.

[dogday]

4. This story has be proven to be true

they can keep it off their pages if they must, doesn't hide the fact, it is true....

[seemslikeadream]

6. It's been deleted here at least 10 times now

[iconoclastic cat]

10. Seriously?

:wtf:

[seemslikeadream]

12. absolutely

If this thread isn't deleted I will be very suprised.

[helderheid]

33. I think Will Pitt's was the first post on it and it was locked

[jmc777]

76. That's probably because....

....someone mentioned the "I" or/and "M" word.

[tx_dem41]

7. Separate facts may be true, of course....

the "filling-in-between" part is definitely up in the air.

[dogday]

19. I know this part to be true

On a BBC Radio 5 interview that aired on the evening of the 7th, the host interviewed Peter Power, Managing Director of Visor Consultants, which bills itself as a 'crisis management' advice company, better known to you and I as a PR firm.

Peter Power was a former Scotland Yard official, working at one time with the Anti-Terrorist Branch.

Power told the host that at the exact same time that the London bombings were taking place, his company was running a 1,000 person strong exercise which drilled the London Underground being bombed at the exact same locations, at the exact same times, as happened in real life.

[iconoclastic cat]

22. With none of the perps currently in custody.

Odd.

[postulater]

66. Doesn't that cat ever take a sip of that beer?

My wife is wondering why the beer never goes down?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

44. Wrong yet again.

He said he was running test for a company that employed 1000 people, not that 1000 PEOPLE WERE INVOLVED.

[dogday]

46. Reference please?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

48. Certainly...

t half past nine this morning we were actually running an exercise for a company of over a thousand people in London

It's from the interview. I believe prisonplanet were the ones who originally twisted this to mean 1000 people were involved in the simulation (which they also incorrectly refer to as a drill)

[dogday]

50. 1000 people involved in the whole organization

is what he said in this video. I don't care much about the people involved, it is the drill or the simulation in this case that interests me. The fact that there was one going on at the same time the bombs were set to go off.

Here is a link to the interview

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2005/110705bombingexercises.htm

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

51. How is this not clear?

He and some people from his firm...

Were conducting a simulation FOR another company.

The company for which they were performing the simulation EMPLOYED 1000 people.

The point is that to say 1000 people were involved is wrong and a perversion of what he actually stated.

Further to the point, Prison Planet is intentionally twisting his words to support their agenda. This I do not like.

[dogday]

53. You are picking a point I am not interested in

I am interested in the Drill or Simulation itself. The amount of people is inconsequential to me. It is the drill itself I am interested in, not the people...

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

59. Then I suggest not quoting Prison Planet to me.

Because they are liars.

[dogday]

61. You are entitled

to your opinion as I am to mine. I don't think they are liars and I don't think you are better than me, so therefore I will post what I want and say what I want... Don't read it if you don't like it...

[dogday]

16. It has been deleted from this board many times

but since then others sources have also been found to back this up. This story gives more than enough facts to check the source Peter Power who is on BBC radio...

[QuettaKid]

29. an excellent point overlooked at DKos...

Someone made a point about how stupid it would be to be running an exercise at the same time.....actually, it's the perfect time:

The exercise fulfils several different goals. It acts as a cover for the small compartamentalized government terrorists to carry out their operation without the larger security services becoming aware of what they're doing, and, more importantly, if they get caught during the attack or after with any incriminating evidence they can just claim that they were just taking part in the exercise.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2005/090705bombingexercises.htm

[dogday]

40. FEMA was running a drill in NY City

on 9-11

[Old and In the Way]

9. Since when do governments outsource "crisis management"?

Seems like we are privitizing more and more governmental functions...and the accountanility.

[StrafingMoose]

11. It's called "let the door open"...

And you got to take their words for it you know...

"Mr Blair said at the weekend that "all the surveillance in the world" would not stop terrorists determined to attack Britain" (http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,15889534%5E1702,00.html)


Sure, with a door open...

[JackRiddler]

41. Who says it was a government?

Most of spook world was long ago privatized. Or rather, the spooks privatized themselves following the difficulties they ran into with disclosure and a handful of responsible overseers in the 1970s (Church, Pike, the House Assassinations Committee, etc.)

[muriel_volestrangler]

49. It was for a company, not for the government

Read the story. Power was working for a company. There's no outsourcing of government functions here.

[Old and In the Way]

67. Perhaps you should reread it.

"A consultancy agency with government and police connections was running an exercise for an unnamed company"

That doesn't sound like the government was running this exercise, does it? And why is this company "unnamed"?

[muriel_volestrangler]

70. "with government and police connections"

Power is a retired policeman. That is a "government and police connection".

Precisely my point - the government was not running the exercise - Visor Consultants was. The exercise was for another company. Therefore there is no government outsourcing involved - it's a job that one private company is doing for another.

The company is "unnamed" because work that one company does for another is often confidential. And to be frank, given that Visor Consultants has had to construct a form email reply that says "don't bother us again", because so many "ill informed people" (Visor's words) are contacting them, the other company isn't going to rush to publicise their name.

[lonestarnot]

14. Why was this thread deleted 10X? I saw it once and a real

barrage of criticism re the author of article... don't get it.

[iconoclastic cat]

17. Well, THIS thread wasn't deleted...I just wrote it. This is the first I've

heard of this story...

[lonestarnot]

37. Well I saw it a couple of days ago and thread locked, first posted

by William Pitt.

[DoYouEverWonder]

47. Then you missed the fireworks this morning

it was really nuts around here for a little bit. PaulThompson was the first to post the Peter Power story/link for CDC. Some mod deleted the thread. Then he posted it again. Same thing. Then we both posted it in GD. Deleted faster then you could blink. After some PM's I think we at least got the indiscriminate deleting of threads taken care of, at least for the moment.

[DoYouEverWonder]

27. I think we had an overzealous mod

out early this morning.

I believe the problem has since been resolved and that we can now post this new info.

However, what actually was going on is still a mystery.

[BlueStateGirl]

54. They were deleted because they linked to prisonplanet as the source.

[nolabels]

15. I love your cat

:loveya:

[iconoclastic cat]

18. Actually, he's not mine. I just image-googled "cat beer" and he came up.

[nolabels]

34. Some once told me beer goes good with fishing too

http://www.pcvoyage.com/nutty/

[JackRiddler]

21. MODS, PLEASE: Before you lock or banish this...

Consider that the site, Prison Planet, whatever its other transgressions may be, is in this case only reporting what was actually said on BBC 5 radio.

The clip is still available on the BBC 5 site, here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/drive.shtml
(It will be ditched after a week as this site only archives programs for 7 days and is difficult to accesss. Go to: Listen again to "Drive". This contains all the programs for last week. Click on: Thu.Press play and go to this time: 01:03:37. That is when the interview begins.)

In the clip, the interviewed subject says he is Peter Power, head of the Visor Consultants PR firm:

QUOTE:

POWER: At half past nine this morning (7/7/05) 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, so I still have the hairs on the back of my neck standing up right now.

HOST: 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 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 that 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.

Visor Consultants:
http://www.visorconsultants.com/index.html

Let us assume for a moment (as we normally would on hearing any item on British state radio) that this is genuine, i.e. that the interview is for real and that Power is truthfully relating what he was doing on 7/7.

In that case, this is a smoking-gun proof that people at the firm which hired Power knew in advance about the 7/7 attacks.

Power is saying "SIMULTANEOUS bombs going off PRECISELY at the railway stations where it happened this morning." Not a similar drill, or a routine drill, but the same time, same targets and same methods. An "innocuous coincidence" is in the realm of the laughably incredible.

I'm not going to guess why someone who knew the attacks were coming wished to hire the PR firm in advance, and thus tip their hand. Maybe this was done by masterminds who are supremely confident that major media won't follow up on such revelations. (The coverage given to the 9/11 fraud would certainly inspire confidence in the infallibility of government official stories once proclaimed.)

What's salient for a start is that Power's drill (again, if true) cannot be a coincidence, and that any serious investigation would focus its energies on following the trail back to the source of the foreknowledge.

In general, the hypotheses we allow determine our possible conclusions.

If we consider a possible hypothesis a priori "unthinkable," we will be blind to the evidence that supports it. It will appear unconnected and irrelevant.

Since the age of the CIA-backed Italian bombings of the 1970s, upon hearing of any spectacular multi-pronged terror attack in the West, the most reasonable initial assumption for thinking people is to hypothesize it was engineered by a tentacle of the octopoidal, privatized and invisible spook complexes that inhabit of governments; with the motive of keeping people in obedient hysteria to a strong-armed state.

Of course, terror acts could also be products of genuine asymmetric warfare by jihadists (of whatever religion or ideology).

But if you're not seriously considering at least both of these possibilities from the outset, you are imprisoning yourself in advance.

[iconoclastic cat]

23. I never thought I'd write a lock-worthy thread! Cool!

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

45. No it is not.

Prison Planet is making shit up.



The exercise fulfils several different goals. It acts as a cover for the small compartamentalized government terrorists to carry out their operation without the larger security services becoming aware of what they're doing, and, more importantly, if they get caught during the attack or after with any incriminating evidence they can just claim that they were just taking part in the exercise.

Somehow I don't think the BBC said that.

[QuettaKid]

52. never said the BBC said that...

That part of it was Alex Jones theory...and it makes perfect sense.

[JackRiddler]

65. Sadly

I must conclude that you aren't reading very carefully, since the article does not quote the BBC to that effect but merely offers its own analysis.

The fact that a PR firm was hired in advance to do this work for a scenario that then came true on the same day and in the same way shows someone knew the details of the attack in advance. For now the "why" doesn't matter. First job is to track down the who.

[iconoclastic cat]

24. Mods, see, this is why I should be confined to the lounge...

:spank:

[OneBlueSky]

25. the single most negligent thing Congress has done . . .

in the past four years is not thoroughly and openly investigate what happened on 9/11 . . . the "official" version remains the most unlikely explanation possible, and our "representatives" continue to recite it as if it were fact . . . while ignoring literally volumes of evidence that point to other conclusions . . .

it seems likely that something quite similar will happen in the UK vis-a-vis 7/7 . . . it's already begun with Blair's declaration that an independent investigation is not needed . . . sound familiar? . . .

makes you wonder just how stupid these "leaders" think we peasants actually are . . .

[jsamuel]

26. This thread may not be deleted because the source is now backed up

with info from the CBC. Before, it was only seen on Prison Planet, which the Mods thought was counter-productive for this story.

So, if you include the link to the CBC page, that would help.

http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/#night

"...Peter Power is Managing Director of a London-based consulting firm that specializes in crisis management, Visor Consultants - which on the morning of July 7 was co-incidentally running a security exercise for a private firm, simulating multiple bomb explosions in the London Underground, at the same stations that were subsequently attacked in real life."

[seemslikeadream]

30. Paul Thompson tried to post with that link early this morning

was deleted also

[Old and In the Way]

38. Pretty sad day when Paul Thompson's posts get deleted.

[gandalf]

57. Right

That is what I thought, too.

He really proved that he is an honest and precise researcher and no tinfoil-hatter.

[DoYouEverWonder]

31. All of the threads with the CDC link were disappeared this morning

They weren't just locked. They were totally deleted. I did get a response from one of the other mods and I believe that the problem was resolved to the point that we can at least post and respond to this new info.

[dogday]

32. You got to wonder why it was deleted

I mean after all the original article had facts that could of been checked...

The source Alex Jones comes out of Austin, he has alot of insight and he backs up everything he says with reference. I have one of his tapes about 9-11 and he backs up everything with printed reference. It makes it hard not to believe it....

[helderheid]

28. got this link from a Dutch email talking about this

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/july2005/090705bombingexercises.htm

http://www.daanspeak.com/LondonAttack01.html

[QuettaKid]

35. KICK. nt.

:kick:

[tubbacheez]

36. I'm glad someone is probing this, but I think nothing has turned up yet.

To be perfectly honest and frank here, I'm not sure this news really indicates much of anything.

Contrary to pop culture, conducting training is supposed to be a very common thing for those who work in emergency services, so common that real situations won't affect the mind any differently. They don't do very well if they train just once a month.

And good training is supposed to involve plausible scenarios. If the training developer can anticipate what real bad guys would want to do, so much the better.

Also, having a real disaster occur while training is in progress is not necessarily going to cause a breakdown in the system. Any competent organization will have a communications protocol ready to stop the drill and go to work for real. (I admit having no knowledge of whether the actual organizations involved are, indeed, competent or not.)

In fact, depending on the discipline and mental state of the people involved, a real attack during a training exercise could even trigger a heightened response. When would be a better time to attack a blackbelt... 1). as he's arriving for taekwondo class and thinking random thoughts, or 2). immediately afterward when he's all amped up from training?





So, sure, it's possible this is evidence of a LIHOP or similar-veined plot. I certainly wouldn't rule anything out just yet.

But on its face, this story doesn't do much besides remind me how little the general public knows about the discipline and training that emergency personnel get, or should be getting.

[jsamuel]

39. That makes sense

All I want is for people to look into this kind of thing. It probably is a coincidence, but why not look into it and prove that it is or that it isn't. Heck, it could even lead to the uncovering of an Al-Qui'da spy in the anti-terrorist response team.

[nolabels]

42. To what end was it a coincidence

The people with the bombs knowing they were doing the drills? This fact would seem odd with the G8 meeting in the country. Or did they schedule the drill after the time and place after the G8 meeting was scheduled or even some group was able to steer the G8 meeting there and then because they they knew they could use it?

Some of it also sounds like bad planning if any thing like that was the case. That would make sense too since they didn't have that long to put it together.

[tubbacheez]

43. Yup, anything (or maybe nothing) can turn up.

The inner scientist in me is saying, "Oh yes, by all means, look for something. Look well, even. Just don't start expecting to find anything."

[Garbo 2004]

60. Except it wasn't a gov't drill. A private company was holding its own

emergency excercise for its own emergency mgt team using outside consultants, like a fire drill. Except in London, where they've had a history of bombings and fear more, the drill had a terrorist bombing scenario.

[hedgetrimmer]

55. ....meow

coincidences watched, they must be... purrrr...

fresh kitty litter on old dirty kitty litter is all just kitty litter...

[Taxloss]

56. Well, we have exercises all the time.

We had 20 years of them during the IRA campaign. Our emergency services train continually for this sort of thing. Large companies also conduct drills to see how quickly they can evacuate their buildings. There was no conspiracy here. I'm sure this was simply a coincidence.

[rman]

68. Exersizes every day, covering all posible scenarios,

so that it is inevitable that when an actual attack takes place, it is identical to one of the exersizes taking place that day?
I didn't think so.

[nolabels]

58. More info

at this thread also

Terror Drills in London on 7/7
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=125&topic_id=46961

[drm604]

62. If this was more than just a coincidence

it doesn't necessarily indicate some kind of government conspiracy. It may indicate that there are jihadist spies that obtained advance information about the drills. By mimicking the drill down to the exact time and places they may have figured that they would confuse and slow down any response to the attacks.

[StrafingMoose]

64. Exactly...

Same thing, to a certain extent, could have been possible with 9/11.

But don't expect to see that kind of conclusion in an official report or else we're at war with countries the US/UK would rather not want to.

And a spy job is sometimes to make someone commit treason. Not always penetrate and control. Easier to have someone in the inside doing it for you.

[StrafingMoose]

63. The more I look at it...

It needs to be more than a tabletop exercise to have any kind of suspicious meaning.

Apparently, a private customer hired Visor for the paper BS about crisis management.

Who this "private customer" could have hired for ANOTHER part of the drill?

Another private security provider that offers the services of onsite security agents and such?

If they DID have people on the specified "drilled" areas they, in all logic, must have warned the autorities.

Oh well, I'm throwing a wild guess here. Let's see what happens.

[ROH]

71. Yes, let's see what happens (n/t)

[ROH]

72. "WAS IT SUICIDE?" ... Were they told it was an exercise?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=15742951%26method=full%26siteid=94762%26headline=exclusive%2d%2d58%2d%2dwas%2dit%2dsuicide%2d-name_page.html

WAS IT SUICIDE?

Why did they buy return train tickets to Luton? Why did they buy pay & display tickets for cars? Why were there no usual shouts of 'Allah Akhbar'? Why were bombs in bags and not on their bodies?

THE London bombers may have been duped into killing themselves so their secrets stayed hidden.

Police and MI5 are probing if the four men were told by their al-Qaeda controller they had time to escape after setting off timers. Instead, the devices exploded immediately.

A security source said: "If the bombers lived and were caught they'd probably have cracked. Would their masters have allowed that to happen? We think not."

...

Their devices were in large rucksacks which could be easily dumped instead of being strapped to their bodies. They carried wallets containing their driving licences, bank cards and other personal items. Suicide bombers normally strip themselves of identifying material.


----------


Were they told it was an exercise? Were they told they were part of a secret test drill, and that their rucksacks did not contain actual explosives?

... two of the bombers had strong personal reasons for staying alive.

Jermaine Lindsay's partner Samantha Lewthwaite, 22, mother of his one-year-old son, is expecting her second baby within days. Mohammed Sidique Khan's wife Hasina, mum of a 14-month-old daughter, is also pregnant.


http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/1,,2005320810,00,00.html

SUICIDE bomber Lindsay Jamal’s wife last night insisted: “They’ll have to prove to me he did it.”
Pregnant Samantha Lewthwaite, 22, refused to accept Jamal was the fourth London bomber, responsible for 26 deaths. She sobbed: “He wasn’t the sort of person who’d do this. I won’t believe it until I see proof.”


MOHAMMAD SIDIQUE KHAN

One neighbour said: "He didn't seem to be an extremist. He was not one to talk about religion. He was generally a very nice bloke."


HASIB HUSSAIN

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1189202,00.html

They said the 18-year-old was a "loving and normal young man".

"We had no knowledge of his activities and had we done we would have done everything in our power to stop him."


SHEHZAD TANWEER

"He was proud to be British," he said. "He had everything to live for. His parents were loving and supportive."

"He was a very kind and calm person. He was respected by everyone."

[jmc777]

75. Here are some video clips of Peter Power talking about this.....

http://www.zippyvideos.com/8433204600155.html

http://globalresearch.ca/audiovideo/070705londonterrorexercise.wmv