Britain Missed Chances at Foiling Bombings

[ECH1969]

Britain's intelligence agencies missed chances to thwart last year's transit attacks by failing to follow up leads on two of the men who became the country's first suicide bombers, major reports said Thursday.

The government blamed a lack of funds, a too-slow buildup of intelligence staff in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, and spies' failure to anticipate that British citizens would contemplate suicide attacks on their homeland.

Suspected ringleader Mohammed Sidique Khan and accomplice Shezad Tanweer traveled to Pakistan and it is "likely that they had some contact with al-Qaida figures," said a second report, by the Intelligence and Security Committee, a panel of nine British lawmakers.

In September, Khan made a posthumous farewell in a videotape aired on Al-Jazeera television. Khan said he was inspired by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri and by the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi.

http://www.santamariatimes.com/articles/2006/05/11/ap/international/d8hhri680.txt

[Cooley Hurd]

1. LIHOP?

:shrug:

[Kagemusha]

2. More like LIH. Sheesh.

Lack of funds and resources is the most honest version of the story we've heard yet. Not that I appreciate that - it means the previous versions were politically convenient untruths - but it is a reasonable explanation and fits Britain well. Their government certainly doesn't have unlimited funds.

[Rex]

3. So the CIA didn't know about Saddam's WMDs

and the UK's MI5 was just...what...I can't even figure this out...stupid about terrorism? What the hell is going on here? England and America are really looking like two nations of fools. :(