Intelligence

Shake-up follows London terror reports

ePolitix.com - Shake-up follows London terror reports

Reviews of the events surrounding the July 7 bombings have prompted a series of changes to Britain's intelligence mechanisms.

A report from the intelligence and security committee, drawn up from MPs and peers, suggested there had been misjudgements over the threat posed by 'home-grown' terrorists.

And the government's official analysis concluded that the four suicide bombers - Mohammad Sidique Khan, Hasib Hussain, Shehzad Tanweer and Jermaine Lindsay - carried out their attacks on a budget of less than £8,000.

Home secretary John Reid said that there needed to be an "effective and adequately resourced law enforcement and intelligence effort" to deal with the problem.

Meanwhile, MI5 director general Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller announced that her organisation is halting work on serious crime issues to focus on the terrorist threat.

She said "we are now faced by an unprecedented level of priority casework on international terrorism and I have decided, with the home secretary's agreement, that we need to withdraw from serious crime casework".

"The resources freed up will help to reinforce our work on international terrorism," Dame Eliza added.

According to data on the MI5 website, serious crime accounted for 2.5 per cent of the organisation's resources in December 2005.

Reid has also accepted the need to shake-up the warning system for assessing the terrorist threat.

The home secretary said the government would introduce a "simpler, more flexible and proportionate system" for assessing and categorising threat levels.

The intelligence and security committee report called for reforms, and former home secretary David Blunkett has also expressed his doubts over the way it functions.

The alert was dropped a level just a month before the July attacks, a move Blunkett said he would have objected to.

"When I was home secretary, with the information and advice I was given, I would not have countenanced, I would have said to MI5 'I don't believe this is the correct thing to do'," he told the BBC.

"With the hindsight I have now, I wouldn't do it, but with the advice and information that might may have been available to MI5 and Special Branch at the time, they may have taken an entirely different view.

"The problem we have is that the home secretary isn't in charge of operational matters and you have to be very certain of your facts and very secure and confident in your belief to actually say to them 'I'm terribly sorry but I'm challenging you not to do this'."

May 11, 2006 at 12:00 PM in MI5 | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home