By the mid-1990s the UK’s intelligence agencies and the police were well aware that London was increasingly being used as a base by individuals involved in promoting, funding and planning terrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere. However, these individuals were not viewed as a threat to the UK’s national security, and so they were left to continue their activities with relative impunity, a policy which caused much anger among the foreign governments concerned. As a result of giving lower priority to international terrorism, the British authorities did not fully appreciate the threat from Al-Qaeda. The failure to gain any warning from existing information of the 9/11 attacks on the United States was an intelligence failure of the entire Western alliance, not only of the US intelligence community.
Al-Qaeda, which is best described as a movement or a network of networks and affiliates with a presence in at least 60 countries, confronts the US and its allies and the whole international system with the most dangerous form of terrorist threat ever posed by non-state actors. Unlike the more traditional terrorist groups formed in the 1970s and 1980s, Al-Qaeda explicitly promotes mass killing, and the 9/11 attacks, together with their major assaults in Kenya, Bali, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Spain, prove that they remain committed to carrying out deadly and determined attacks wherever and whenever the opportunity arises.
The UK is at particular risk because it is the closest ally of the United States, has deployed armed forces in the military campaigns to topple the Taleban regime in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and has taken a leading role in international intelligence, police and judicial
cooperation against Al-Qaeda and in efforts to Qaeda network from posing a continuing terrorist threat; and to ensure that Afghanistan ceased to give safe-haven support and protection to terrorists. ... the UK government has been conducting counter-terrorism policy ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with the US, not in the sense of being an equal decision-maker, but rather as pillion passenger compelled to leave the steering to the ally in the driving seat. There is no doubt that the situation over Iraq has imposed particular difficulties for the UK, and for the wider coalition against terrorism. It gave a boost to the Al-Qaeda network’s propaganda, recruitment and fundraising, caused a major split in the coalition, provided an ideal targeting and training
area for Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists, and deflected resources and assistance that could have been deployed to assist the Karzai government and to bring bin Laden to justice. Riding pillion with a powerful ally has proved costly in terms of British and US military lives, Iraqi lives, military expenditure, and the damage caused to the counter-terrorism campaign.
<snip>
Above all, if as a society we are to ascribe an appropriate meaning to the events of 2001 – one that does not enhance fear domestically or encourage us to become dependent on professional experts who tell us how to lead our lives at such times – then we need to promote a political debate as to our aims and purposes as a society. Surely, those who risk their lives fighting fires or fighting wars do so not so that their children can grow up to do the same, but rather because they
believe that there is something more important to life worth fighting for. It is that ‘something more’ that contemporary society appears to have lost sight of. And it is a loss we ignore at our peril.
http://www.riia.org/pdf/research/niis/BPsecurity.pdfThe Rt Hon Dr John Reid MP, Secretary of State for Defence, was on BBC radio this morning, trying to suggest that 9/11 had nothing to do with (could not have been provoked by) all the Western military activity - eg bombing by the US/UK - in Iraq and Afghanistan during the 1990s. Lying, dissembling, deceitful, hypocritical shmuck.
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